Manchester celebrates its four-set win over Wawasee at home Tuesday. (Photos by James Costello)

NORTH MANCHESTER — The hallmark of young volleyball teams is often the way that they throttle back after some early success. That was the case for Manchester Tuesday as the Squires left the door open for visiting Wawasee, which capitalized with a win during an extended third game. But after making their hosts fight for everything they got over the second and third sets, the Warriors surrendered some long service runs to Manchester in the fourth, ultimately falling 25-13, 25-22, 24-26, 25-19 on the road.

“The one thing my team is really struggling with right now is giving up points. Our unforced errors, the points we give up without the other team influencing anything, are far outweighing the points that we earn,” explained Wawasee coach Kayla Riportella. “And one thing that I keep explaining to my girls and one thing we’re working to minimize is that you can’t win volleyball matches when you give them the game. Earning our points has been our focus, and we’re still a little bit rocky. When things get close, when momentum gets high, when we lose a tough rally or a long rally or we get a couple-point run, my team tends to move into survival mode and panic instead of focusing and trusting that they can compete, they can play, and delivering on it.”

The home team took it to the Warriors early, running out to a dominant 25-13 win in the opening set, but the Warriors kept it close in the second set, knotting up the score seven times and even leading 17-15 late before the Squires took control with a 6-1 run to get out front, 21-18 on the way to a two-game lead. With that cushion on their side, the hosts started slowly in the third set, and Wawasee jumped out to an 11-3 lead. Manchester tied it up twice midway through the game and was tied again briefly at 24-all but never led as the Warriors cut their deficit to 2-1.

“We’ve been battling with trying to keep our intensity level high, and so I felt like we had a little bit of a letdown in that third game, let them get some momentum. And they’re a good team; they’re not going to roll over and let somebody just come out and beat them in three,” said Manchester coach Melissa West. “They were hitting the ball well. They started picking apart the spots that we weren’t in. So for us in Game 4, I really pressed to the girls we’ve got to make sure we come out with some intensity to start with. And then we’ve just got to find holes. We’ve got to work together as one unit to find holes and spots to put the ball. I thought we did a good job of that.”

Madi Simmons goes on the attack for Wawasee. Simmons put away a match-high 20 kills for the Warriors.

Manchester’s young crew tightened it up in the fourth game, however, and it was the Squires’ turn to lead pretty much wire-to-wire. Wawasee led just once early at 2-1, but after that it was pretty much all Manchester as the home team closed it out with a convincing, 25-19 win. The Squires punished some bad serve receives, a bit of miscommunication and used some off-rhythm attacking to keep the Warriors guessing in the clincher.

“Something that we really talk about a lot is just being the aggressor. We’re not a big team so if we have to defend, defend, defend, it makes it tough on our defensive players in the back row. So if we have chances to hit it across on two, that’s what we’re going to try to do,” explained West. “We’re going to try to push balls to corners and find the temp areas. I thought we did a good job with that tonight.”

Manchester’s versatile attack was paced by senior middle hitter Anna Osborne, who finished with 14 kills earned at a 50 percent clip in addition to four aces and 16 digs.

“She’s super smart and so when she plays volleyball sometimes that hinders her because she thinks too much, and the thing she did really well tonight is we were talking in timeouts about what was open and she would go to that the next point,” said West of Osborne. “She had really nice tips to zone 4 out of the middle that was wide open. I think she really played well tonight for us.”

Kendra Kline passed out 24 assists and dug up 12 balls for the Squires, and Eva Bazzoni and Emma West finish with 20 and 15 digs, respectively.

Wawasee was led pretty much everywhere by junior Madison Simmons, meanwhile, as she finished with a match-high 20 kills, four aces and 16 digs.

“Madi Simmons is pure energy. She is pure competition. She is a true-blooded competitor to the core,” Riportella said. “She’s the fire that our team has needed for a long time, and she has kind of been kindling a flame within this roster and getting girls to show their true colors. Simmons does really, really well using a tool and a block, and tonight was her night. At the net, on defense, serving — she brought it.”

Elizabeth Kleopfer bumps the ball while Molly Jones gets in position at Manchester.

Elizabeth Kleopfer tallied 22 assists, Molly Jones and Janae Hapner recorded three and two blocks, respectively, at the net, and Brooke Hech and Peyton Rookstool led the Warrior defense with 18 and 16 digs, respectively.

Manchester improved to 8-3 and will test its unbeaten Three Rivers Conference record opposite presumptive TRC favorite Wabash in a big match Thursday night in North Manchester. Wawasee slips to an even 5-5 with Tuesday’s result following a 2-2 split at the Westview Invite Saturday. The Warriors will host Plymouth in a Northern Lakes Conference match Thursday night.

“As a team, our mindset, our focus is that everybody is running an individual race — they’re focused on beating the person that they were yesterday. They’re bettering themselves and who they were to become the player that they can be,” Riportella said.

“We’ve seen a lot of things from this program, from this school that we haven’t seen in years. I’m pretty sure last year I went 0-4 in our Westview Invitational tournament. We finished 2-2, and every match we lost we took to three sets. That’s huge for us. That’s a milestone. We still have a lot of kinks to work out, and where we are in the season this early, I’m hopeful that these kinks are going to be ironed out just for when it matters.”

Wawasee’s JV won its match at Manchester in straight sets Tuesday, 25-17, 25-19.  Delaney Hare tallied five kills and five aces. Kai Samora finished with nine assists, and Morgan Heche tallied 11 digs and two aces. The Warriors JV improved to 8-3.