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Munster tops LC in three games
Updated: August 24, 2011 10:00PM
Mustangs senior middle blocker Caley Mintz sat in the doctor’s office after school Tuesday afternoon holding her stomach and hoping the pain would just go away.
She and her teammates had guests coming to town and she wanted to take care of some business.
“(Lake Central) has always been one of our rivals,” said Mintz, who recorded four block kills. “We were e-mailing each other on our new laptops and getting each other pumped through text messages, so it was fun.
“It was frustrating when I sat in doc’s office after school. I couldn’t even practice beforehand. But I knew I had to get out there.”
Munster got its act together and put forth a strong effort, defeating the Indians at home in three games, 25-19, 25-15, 25-21, to improve to 2-1 on the season.
LC coach Tina Tinberg said the Mustangs were dominant from the very start.
“When you come out of the gates and serve aggressively and control the match, you’re going to control it all the way through and momentum is going to be with your team,” she said. “I thought as the match went along we blocked effectively and executed better at the net.
“But they served very aggressively tonight and their serve receive and defense is really quite unbelievable. We need some work on our serve receive but there’s a lot of promise on our team; we’ve got six seniors with great leadership.”
Munster trailed in Games 1 and 3 but came back in both of them to win the match.
“We tend to do that,” said Mintz, of her team’s ability to come back. “We like to get down and crawl back up. We tried to push through. We try to think of it as 0-0 all the time out there. We always practice to six points and to see who can get there first.”
Lake Central seemed to have turned the momentum in Game 3 when it jumped ahead 14-10 and 17-11. Munster coach Tracy Afman had to call two timeouts in a 5-minute span to wake up her team.
“I just keep telling them the same things,” Afman said. “I always emphasize that they are a great team and that they can go to anybody and they can get the job done but they need to focus at that moment.
“And I usually give them advice on a play to do at that time. I think I said isolate our right side — that was Melissa (Hajduch) — and that’s exactly what she did. But it’s more of a motivating talk at that point.”
Munster seemed to get the point after the second timeout, rolling off six straight points to tie the match. LC jumped ahead 19-17 on a kill by Nikki Adams but Hadjuch (seven kills) answered right back with back-to-back kills to tie Game 3.
The Mustangs went on a 6-2 run to win the match as the Indians knocked the final ball out of bounds to end the contest.
Setter Jamie Rogalski led Munster with 17 assists on 62-for-68 setting, while Morgan Switalla added 13 assists (44-for-47) and four aces (20-for-20 serving). Sophomore Lauren Macadlo added nine kills (18-for-20 hitting) and two aces (18-for-18).
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