Volleyball: St. Bede starts strong, sweeps Putnam County in Tri-County match

PERU – The St. Bede volleyball team was clicking on all cylinders from the start Tuesday.

The Bruins took control of both sets early and cruised to a 25-11, 25-20 victory over Putnam County in a Tri-County Conference match.

“I think tonight is the first night we’ve looked uniform and put together in a long time, which is really good, especially against a team like PC,” said St. Bede coach Kaitlyn Edgcomb, a Putnam County graduate who was facing her high school coach, Putnam County’s Amy Bell. “We played very well together, and everything just kind of meshed and finally clicked.

“I’m impressed with their progress.”

In the first set, Ashlyn Ehm blocked a kill attempt to tie it at 3 then scored on a tip to give the Bruins the lead for good at 4-3. The Bruins extended the lead to 13-4. Ehm had two more kills during the run, and Grace Millington went on a five-point service run.

“We played super well,” Ehm said. “We played individually great, and as a team we worked together super well. I’m very proud of our team, because we all had our energy up from the start to the end, and our student section was crazy today.”

St. Bede led by at least seven points the rest of the way and ended it on a kill by Ehm and a Panthers error.

“Our energy was huge tonight,” Edgcomb said. “I think being big at the net (was key). Our front row really took care of the ball and got us the kills and blocks that we needed.”

In the second set, Sadie Koehler served two early aces to help the Bruins race out to a 6-1 lead, and St. Bede led throughout the set.

“I think just continuing to be aggressive at the net (helped prevent PC from getting back into it) and telling the defense to really read the ball so we could set up a good offense to run, and that’s what we did tonight,” Edgcomb said.

The Bruins extended the lead to as many as 10 at 24-14 before St. Bede made six consecutive errors to close it to 24-20 before a Putnam County error ended the match.

“We just really struggled,” Bell said. “They served well. We struggled to serve-receive. We struggled to create our own offense. It was St. Bede’s night, and props to them. They had some nice servers, and they had some good swings. It wasn’t our night.

“At the end, you could tell we started to play together. We started to attempt to swing more aggressively. We got kind of caught up trying to tip or hit a shot, but when we would swing aggressively, things would go down. So we have to build from there.

“While (some of our players) are not young in age, necessarily, a lot of them are young in experience, and we’re still trying to find a way that clicks with them. We’re trying to find that cohesive unit that meshes together and is ready to go every night.”

Ehm led the Bruins (11-9, 4-1 TCC) with seven kills, while Lili McClain and Lily Bosnich each had four. Koehler had 14 assists.

For the Panthers (8-8, 1-4), Sarah Wiesbrock had 18 digs, while Eme Bouxsein contributed eight digs, six points, three assists and two kills.