Bellevue tops Norwalk in Lake finale

BELLEVUE — Norwalk couldn't have asked for a better start Thursday. The Truckers led wire-to-wire in the first set on the road against Bellevue. Norwalk never found that magic again the rest of the way as the Lady Red picked up a 22-25, 25-22, 25-12, 25-14 Sandusky Bay Conference Lake Division victory. With the win, Bellevue (18-4, 8-2 SBC Lake) splits the league title with Tiffin Columbian (15-7, 8-2). Norwalk dropped to 10-11, 4-6. "I hate to keep repeating myself, but when you can't score points on your own and you're waiting for someone else to make a mistake, that's the game changer," Norwalk coach Sarah Kipp said. "Right now, we're kind of in the mode of waiting to score points off of other people's mistakes instead of going on runs and scoring our own points." The Truckers were hot from the start, playing with a plethora of energy. Kills from Sydney Moehlman and Ainslee King helped Norwalk to a quick 7-1 lead. Bellevue picked up its play a little bit, but a service error on the Lady Red and kill from Maddie Gamble kept Norwalk ahead 13-5. Bellevue chipped away at the deficit, but every time it got close, the Truckers had an answer. The Lady Red were within two points several times including down 21-19, but King lined a pair of kills as Norwalk went up 24-19. After three straight points by Bellevue, a kill from Gamble gave Norwalk the opening set. "I thought our seniors came out and played really well," Kipp said. "Raegan (Mooney) and Sydney were excited and did some really good things in that first set. Sawyer Wineman was fantastic tonight with the number of digs she had and keeping the ball off the floor. She was incredibly effective for us tonight." The second set was just as tight, but Norwalk wasn't able to make that run and keep a lead. Bellevue scored five straight points to go up 9-6 and extended the lead to 15-9 following kills from Finley LaPata and Kaitlyn Turinsky. Similar to the first set, each time Norwalk got within striking distance, Bellevue had the response. Ahead just 21-20, a kill from LaPata was followed by a net violation on Norwalk for a 24-21 Bellevue lead. A hitting error on the Lady Red cut the Truckers' deficit to two, but LaPata pounded another kill to even the match at a set apiece. It was all Bellevue in the final two sets. In Set 3, Norwalk was quickly down 5-1 after a Turinsky kill and later, Bellevue scored three straight points for an 11-4 edge. The Truckers never found that push like it did in the first two sets. The Lady Red ended the set on a 9-1 run, going up 2-1. "Bellevue got more consistent and kept the ball in play," Kipp said. "In the first set, I think they missed quite a few serves. The rest of the way, they tightened it up and didn't make as many errors. They picked apart at our defense." Set 4 was almost identical to Set 3. Two serving aces by Kate Baptista gave Bellevue a 7-1 lead early in the set. Norwalk struggled to get any offense going and found itself down 11-3 after a kill from Mazie Gracemyer. The Truckers scored points here and there, but the consistency was nowhere to be found. Calie Cramer smacked a kill, Ellie Freitag served up an ace and Turnisky tallied the final kill to give Bellevue the win and its first league title since sharing with Norwalk in 2019. "They do a very nice job of making teams stay fundamental defensively," said Kipp of the Lady Red. "They hit at seams and they hit at corners. We struggled with that tonight." Moehlman finished with 13 kills while Gamble had 12 kills. King contributed 10 kills, Wineman registered 26 digs, Erica Tyler tallied 19 assists and Lola Schlotterer added 12 assists. Bellevue slipped past Norwalk on Sept. 23, 25-23, 25-23, 25-22. "In the first matchup, we had several leads and we gave them up," Petitti said. "That's what we saw a little bit of in the second set. Our biggest focus tonight was to get leads and keep them. We had to take care of business." Norwalk has one more regular-season match Saturday against Division I Massillon Jackson (14-5). It'll be one final tournament tuneup before the Truckers begin the Div. III tournament next week. "That's exactly how we're treating it," Kipp said. "Senior Night for Reagan and Sydney, so that'll be exciting for them. Ultimately, a team like Jackson, we're going to go out and see what we can do and compete."