ARCANUM – Fort Recovery came out swinging in their OHSAA DVI District Semi-Final game verses Arcanum. The Trojans defeated Fort Recovery in five sets nearly two months ago but on this night the Indians rolled to a straight three set victory to advance to the District Finals.
“We knew Fort Recovery was going to definitely bring the energy tonight, and I was hoping that we would kind of match it a little bit more,” said Arcanum coach Jacie Holman.
Fort Recovery established themselves early rattling off 7 straight points to take command and Arcanum played from behind, it wasn’t the start expected falling in set one 25-17.
“I will give my girls credit. I mean, it’s not like we just came out and fell completely flat, but I wish we would have come out a little bit stronger in that first set,” Holman commented.
A healthy and strong Arcanum team rolled to 19 wins this year … but over the last week adversity began to set in.
“We’ve been dealing with illnesses and injuries this week … it seems to be our tournament story, where go all season totally healthy, and then on our tournament run we start to get sick,” Holman stated.
“That’s no excuse, give credit to Fort Recovery they had us frazzled, with their energy and a lot of hard hits and we just could not adjust,” Holman noted.
In the second set Arcanum battled even with the Indians but couldn’t put together the kind of run needed to jump ahead or put pressure on the Fort.
One of the strengths throughout the season for Arcanum has been their ability serve well enough to get the other team out of system, but they only had two aces on the night. Fort Recovery had nine aces in their service game.
“We talked about our serves, and that has been a strength of ours. Unfortunately, we just have not seen a lot of our good serves lately. Especially when we’re down, we tend to get a little bit less aggressive, and that’s actually the time I want them to be more aggressive, to make them out of system. Unfortunately, we just did not serve well, and I think it’s the theme of the game tonight, we did not play our game,” Holman pointed out.
Fort Recovery’s big front line became an obstacle in this one as well, Arcanum accustomed to being able to set and kill was running into roadblocks with the Indians sending two and sometimes three to the net taking away the big hits to win the second set 25-18.
“They definitely were able to get up and complete a lot of blocks on us tonight, when our two outsides are not typically used to seeing two blockers during the season or the middle sees three blockers, that’s like a whole different game,” Holman offered up.
“Our back row wasn’t really talking to our front row, to tell them there’s three blocks, and try to adjust to it. Even on the outside and the right side, we weren’t talking a lot to adjust to those big blocks,” Holman added.
It would be easy to shut it down after going down two sets, but Arcanum showed fight in the third set, the kind of fight that propelled them to a WOAC League Championship in 2024.
They would battle back and forth with the Indians with several long volleys … but in the end they fell in third set 25-22.
Arcanum finished the year 19-4 overall and graduate two key senior players Mackenzie Byrne and Alexis Gibbons.
Mackenzie Byrne was the district 9 player of the year and 1st team all WOAC and Alexis Gibbons was 1st team district 9 and All-WOAC.
“Kenzie and Lexi were a part of my first group on my first varsity team when I took this program over and they are exactly what our what I want our program to look like,” Holman said.
“They are leaders on the court and push themselves to be better and push their team to be better. They are outstanding on and off the court and it speaks volume to me, and we will miss their leadership tremendously. I know great things are ahead, and I’m proud of them,” coach Holman concluded.
