Stow: Say “high school volleyball” and one of the first schools that comes to mind is Stow.
The Bulldogs won state championships in 1975, 1981, 1990 and 1992 and twice were state runners-up.
For years, the Bulldogs’ reputation has intimidated many opponents and even at 17-10 last season, they reached the regional semifinals.
It is only three games into the season, but the 2011 edition of the Bulldogs showed a lot of potential Saturday morning in defeating GlenOak 25-9, 25-16, 25-16.
The Bulldogs set the tone against the young Eagles early in the first game and never let up.
“All my kids one through 12 are talented and with our schedule and injuries, you never know when they will be called upon,” said second-year Stow coach Miguel Ramirez. “We lost a lot of senior leadership [from last year]. That is the toughest thing to replace.
“In the past, they have had very strong seniors to kind of take the pressure off them. Now they are learning what needs to be done.”
Ramirez said that seniors Kelly Vitt and Lexi Stefanov have taken the baton from the graduated seniors.
“When the team is down, your job is to pick the team up and say, ‘Hey, let’s go,’ ” said Vitt, the team’s setter, who led with 29 assists. “In practice when someone says, ‘No, I don’t want to do this,’ or ‘I don’t want to do this drill,’ it is your job to push them and say, ‘No, we need to do this to get better.’ ”
“If someone makes a mistake [you] tell them to keep their head up, because if one person gets down in volleyball it can bring the whole team down,” said Stefanov, a middle hitter, whose eight kills were second to junior outside hitter Megan Garrison’s 12. “If you mess up yourself, don’t let it show you are upset about it. Just keep pushing on.”
This season, the Bulldogs (3-0) lack experience, but understand the importance of continuing the tradition of excellence.
“We always play with a chip on our shoulder. We say entitlement is the enemy,” Stefanov said. “We say we are going to play our game no matter who is on the other side of the net.”
Another senior who is important to the winning formula is Erin Mundorf. The defensive specialist and outside hitter led the Bulldogs in service points with 13, while Vitt had five.
Ally Iwanski and Vitt each had eight digs.
On the Eagles’ side
The Eagles (1-5) are trying to progress and coach Michele Hahn took time after the match to talk to the players about specific things she wants to see improve in coming weeks.
“Half of our team is young players, freshmen and sophomores. We’re going to keep working,” Hahn said. “They are a great group of kids...[once] they get the pace of the game and they learn to cut out their mistakes, we will be fine.”
Stefany Zorc led the Eagles with eights kills, Anne Simon had nine assists and Mackenzie Garman had seven digs.
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