VERSAILLES – The Lady Tigers dropped a 3-0 volleyball match Saturday to the visiting Fort Loramie Lady Redskins .
“We just have no offense,” said Versailles coach Kenzie Bruggeman. “If you don’t have offense you’re sending the ball over – Loramie could run whatever they wanted and they had all the athletic people to make sure it happened.”
“That makes it hard on our defense and we can’t get back in,” Bruggeman continued. “We’re tipping and rolling the ball over every single time. You got to expect to get pounded when you do that.”
In the opening set, Versailles trailed early by five, 10-5 with Loramie keeping the home team at bay with a 17-12 advantage. The Lady Tigers battled back to trail 20-18 only to lose the opening set by a 25-19 score.
The Lady Redskins bolted out to an 8-1 second set lead bringing a timeout from the Versailles bench. Trailing 16-7 brought a second Lady Tigers timeout. Versailles followed with a 5-1 run to trail 17-12 bringing a Loramie timeout.
“We’re not serving very aggressive,” said Bruggeman. “It’s not getting them out of system and on top of it when we are in system and we still end up somehow tipping or rolling it over. If you don’t have offense you just can’t expect to win games and on top of our errors.”
Fort Loramie closed out second set play outscoring the home team 8-5 to go up 2-0 with a 25-17 win.
Set No. 3 was no kinder to the Lady Tigers as they fell behind early and trailed 19-11 on their way to a 25-19 third set loss to the Lady Redskins.
“I want to continue to get pushed, to get exposed to make it realize that you have to work for it and I think that is the big thing that they are trying to realize,” said Versailles coach Kenzie Bruggeman. “People aren’t going to lay over. They are going to push and they are going to make sure that they are playing their ‘A+’ game. That is huge for us. That is very good for us to grow up as a team.”
The Lady Tigers are coming off back-to-back OHSAA state championships including a 2018 team that stood at 10-10 before reeling off 10 straight wins to claim the state title.
“We are a completely different team – it’s not even the same,” Bruggeman said of the 2019 team. “We are trying to find leaders that are out there on the court that we can rely on in tough situations, that get us out of ruts, that get us out of tough situations. People are still learning how to fill that role right now.”
“We just need to find consistency,” Bruggeman concluded. “We have 10+ errors every single game. We’re only losing by five or six points so we just have to buckle down and control our errors on our side.”
