Celina rolls past Shawnee into district final

VAN WERT - Celina used solid hitting and precise serving as it made quick work of Western Buckeye League rival Shawnee in Division II district semifinal volleyball Tuesday.

Celina won 25-15, 25-17, 25-22 and will face Tiffin Columbian at 5p.m. Saturday at Liberty-Benton High School.

"It was nice," Celina coach Carolyn Dammeyer said. "I think the girls came out pumped up, ready to go. They really got fired up before the game. They weren't going to lose. They were determined to win."

Julie Klosterman and Maria Dorsten each handed out 19 assists and five kills for the Celina attack, which forced Shawnee (15-9) into costly mistakes. Celina improves to 20-4.

"I told my setters at the beginning of the game I want you to really mix it up and use your outside hitters," Dammeyer said. "I wanted them to work their middle blocker and make her move side to side and hopefully tire her out."

The strategy paid off as several Bulldogs got involved in the offensive action. Cenzie Yoder led Celina with 10 kills. Kelsey Waterman added 7 kills while Erin Dorsten and Kelsey Martin combined for nine kills and seven blocks.

In game one, Celina jumped out to an early 5-1 lead behind the serving of Klosterman and Audrey Harner. Klosterman recorded five aces on the evening. Shawnee fought back to close the gap to 13-10, but back-to-back aces by Klosterman and unforced Shawnee errors extended the lead to 18-11.

"Our passes were not on the right spot tonight," Shawnee coach Ginger Stahr said. "Our passing killed us tonight, passing and serve receive."

In game two, Celina took a 6-5 lead early and then went on an 11-2 run to push the lead to 17-7.

"As soon as the girls make a mistake they have trouble regrouping and trying to fix it," Stahr said. "Passing and talking, they were not on tonight with that, if we could have passed better on our serve receives we could have hung with them better."

Serving, defense and the ability to get the ball to the setter spearheaded the Bulldog run.

"Our goal tonight was to serve to who we thought were their weakest serve receivers and my girls did a nice job of doing that," Dammeyer said. "I told the girls you served received 99.9 percent tonight. We were able to do whatever we wanted to do with the ball."

Shawnee jumped out to the lead in game three 11-8. Erin Turner led the way with eight kills and eight blocks. Megan Ream served four aces while Sarah Logsdon passed out 25 assists.

"We just worked on getting a point each time," Stahr said. "Not going for the win, just working on getting point by point instead of looking at the score."

The Bulldogs found their groove as the game progressed and grabbed the lead for good 21-20 on a Klosterman kill.

"We just had a little slump during the third game where we were making a few lack of communication mistakes and they were capitalizing on it," Dammeyer said.