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Ansonia
coach Jason Hemmelgarn looks to rally his troops during second
round sectional action
at Piqua Monday. The Tigers fell in three games
to the second seeded team from Lehman
Catholic. CNO Photos by George
Starks
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A-Tigers bow
out of sectional
By George Starks
PIQUA- Jason Hemmelgarn and his assistant Craig Riethman are still
going through the growing pains that young teams will deal with.
Monday night in second round sectional action at Piqua, the Tigers grew
a little bit more.
Going against Lehman Catholic, seeded second, Ansonia bowed out of the
OHSAA tournament, falling to the Cavs, 25-4, 25-3 and 25-11.
"You have to give a lot of credit to Lehman, they are playing at a top
notch level and they are going to make a nice long run here in the
tournament," said Hemmelgarn. "We came in looking to win as we should
have and things didn't go our way tonight. Lehman is a great team."
The loss ended the Tigers season with only two wins but in return, the
team gained some much needed experience.
"We went in with confidence and that's what you have to do," Hemmelgarn
pointed out. "If you go in thinking any other way, you're beat already.
We are very young and we lost one of our best, senior Amber Welbaum, to
injury earlier in the season. Our setter is a freshman and needless to
say, she had a lot of pressure on her. Trial by fire is tough for a
freshman because she's trying to fit in with the upper classman and
that's not easy. We asked a lot from her but the way she played at the
j-v level, we thought she was ready. At times she showed it and at
times, she looked like a freshman. We had a lot of girls in their first
year of varsity and going from junior varsity to varsity is a big jump.
It took some time for the team to mesh and losing Welbaum a week before
our first match put us in a spot and we had to change things around and
get used to something else. We dealt with some different injuries
throughout the year and we had to change things around."
Having scored a total of seven points in the first two games, Ansonia
came out in the third fired up, putting 11 points up on the board.
"I told the girls to keep sticking with the scouting report,"
Hemmelgarn stated. "A couple of our blockers were getting close to
their hitters and I told them to keep looking through the net and work
to get the blocks."
With the season being over, Hemmelgarn is looking toward next season.
"We improved a lot over the season," said the Tiger coach. "I hope we
can pick up where we left off and get things turned around. We had a
lot of sophomores with varsity experience this year and I hope that
will carry over."
Ansonia finishes with a 2-21 record.
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Samantha
Gasper dives for a ball Monday against the Cavaliers.
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