I don’t believe what I just saw
It set up one of the most famous walk-off home runs in baseball history, as Gibson crushed a 3-2 slider into the right field stands, pumping his fist as he hobbled around the bases, inarguably giving the Dodgers the lift they needed to turn the tide and eventually win the Series in five games.
That was eight years before current West Holmes outside hitter Paiten Strother was even born.
But with the highly-touted Lady Knights volleyball team mired in mediocrity and coming off devastating losses in each of its previous two matches – losing senior All-Ohio setter Emily Ditmars to a knee injury during a four-game victory at Ohio Cardinal Conference (OCC) rival Ashland, on Sept. 1, and blowing a two-games-to-none lead at non-conference rival Triway, Sept. 3, to fall against the Lady Titans for the fourth straight year – Strother might have given her team the lift it needed to turn its fortunes around when she pleaded with 16th year head coach Jim Park to put her into the Lady Knights’ Sept. 6 match at OCC rival Mansfield Senior, after sitting through the first two games because of a hip flexor and extreme lower back pain.
“I’ve got to play because we’ve got to win,” the Lady Knights sophomore told Park, after West Holmes had split its first two games against Senior, winning game one 25-20, before tanking in game two, 17-25.
The Lady Tygers would ride their momentum to a 25-21 victory in game three as well, but then the injured Strother did something truly amazing – something seemingly impossible for the 2011 Lady Knights prior to that night.
With her team well on its way to 20 serving errors for the second straight match (they uncorked 22 wild ones at Triway three days earlier), Strother stepped to the line and fired four aces over the final two games, sparking a Lady Knights resurgence, as they closed out the match 25-15 and 15-7, to move to 3-2 on the season and 2-1 in conference play.
“[Paiten] tried to convince me that she was like Kirk Gibson and that she knew what he did,” said Park the next day. “She didn’t. Her dad told her.”
But while the Lady Knights may have been inspired by Strother’s Gibson-like act, had their fathers really talked to them about the ’88 World Series they might have applied a very different lesson to their 2011 season by focusing more on the inability of Eckersley and the A’s to close things out against the Dodgers.
“It’s embarrassing to be up 2-0 and serve out 22 times, no matter who you’re playing,” said Park, after watching West Holmes beat up on Triway 25-22, 25-21, back on Sept. 3., before falling apart and dropping the final three games 22-25, 22-25, 12-15, wasting 26 combined kills from Strother (12) and sophomore middle hitter Laina Snyder (14), along with 33 assists from junior setter Rachelle Morrison, who played outstanding in place of Ditmars. “We led two-games-to-none and won those games very easily actually. We played very well the first two games and then in games three and four we missed a dozen serves. We got aced 13 times, for no reason, off of easy serves, and we quit going behind from the middle even though when we did, we scored every single time.
“We just didn’t close them out. We shouldn’t let these go past three games. Why take the chance?”
But after escaping from Mansfield Senior with a win, the Lady Knights chanced it again at conference rival Wooster on Thursday, Sept. 8, moving to 4-2 (3-1 OCC), but taking four games to dispose of the Lady Generals 25-19, 25-18, 21-25, 25-21.
During game one, West Holmes pulled away after playing to an 11-11 tie, as they went up 16-11, capitalizing on a Wooster serving error and net violation, before sandwiching a Morgan Hawkins easy tip and ferocious spike, around an uncontested kill shot from Strother.
They made it 19-15 on two laser shots off the hand of Snyder; pushed it to 22-18 when senior outside hitter Alysia Brillhart rifled a shot off Wooster’s Brittany Nicholson; extended to 23-19 on a little slap over the net from the senior middle hitter, Hawkins; and put it away 25-19 on another blast from Snyder.
“I just realized I needed to step up, especially with Emily out,” explained Snyder, who stuffed Wooster at the net, and put the ball down on the other side, to make it 5-5 in game two, before giving the Lady Knights a 9-8 lead with another rocket shot off two defenders with their arms extended on the front row.
But West Holmes would actually win game two using a softer approach, as Hawkins tipped over the defense, into open space, to give the Lady Knights another lead at 12-11; did the same thing on her next two chances to make it 15-11; continued with the soft stuff as West Holmes went up 24-17; and watched Brillhart seal the deal at 25-18, by tipping in front of Wooster’s diving defense.
“When you go against good hitters, they get you on your heels,” explained Wooster head coach Jennifer Snowbarger. “The girls get stuck and getting the tip is impossible. Effective tipping is when you could be hitting the ball and you tip, and that’s what they were doing, while we were more tipping to keep the ball alive.
“Coach Park does a great job of finding our weaknesses and going at them.”
But the Lady Knights early season weaknesses reared their ugly heads in game three without Wooster really having to do anything to exploit them, as West Holmes committed six serving errors, to go along with four hitting errors and a passing mistake, en route to a 21-25 loss, which had the Lady Knights chancing another game four against the Generals.
An uncomfortable situation for Park whose team, after totaling 86 serving errors for the season, following their win at Mansfield Senior, had essentially given away 172 points, as the West Holmes head coach explained, “half is points you don’t get and the other half is points they do get.”
So after racking up 16 more serving mistakes by the end of the night against Wooster, the Lady Knights had racked up 102 for the year, producing a swing of 204 points, using Park’s reasoning – which was more than the total combined points scored (184) during West Holmes’ loss at Lexington, and only 10 fewer than the total number (214) scored at Triway.
“It’s just mental,” explained Snyder, talking about the Lady Knights serving woes. “You’ve got to back there thinking you’re going to get every serve over because if you have negative thoughts, they’re not going to go over. I think everyone’s timid right now because they’re all afraid they’re going to miss their serves.”
But they only missed three serves in game four and used a combination of tips and spikes to polish off the Lady Generals 25-21, as Morrison completed her night setting Hawkins for 25 kills and Snyder for 11, finishing with a career-high 45 assists, to go along with her 35 at Ashland, 33 at Triway and 36 at Mansfield Senior.
“It’s really hard trying to fill Emily’s shoes because everyone knows how good she is as a setter,” explained Morrison, who moved into the setter’s position from the right front. “But I know I’ve got to play hard for the team. Emily’s sets are a little faster and mine are higher and slower and so the hitters have got to adjust to me and I’ve got to adjust to all the hitters.”
And other members of the team have to adjust to some new roles and added responsibilities that should give the Lady Knights some much-needed depth moving forward, when Ditmars eventually returns.
“One of the good things is that some kids have to produce right now when they normally wouldn’t have to,” explained Park, after watching his team tie its season low, with only 13 serving errors against Smithville, inside the Dungeon on Saturday, Sept. 10, as they knocked off the Lady Smithies in three straight games – 25-22, 25-22, 25-21 – behind the strength of 13 kills from Hawkins, eight from Snyder and five from Maria Straits, who hit .308 for the match, playing in the right-side spot vacated by Morrison. “More than a couple kids came through in crucial situations. We were really determined not to lose any games and we really showed we’re not going to let games get away. We found a way to win.”
“Some of it has been miscommunication and some of it is, they’re still getting used to my sets,” said Morrison, after the dominating win over Smithville, which had the Lady Knights looking more like the kind of team they expected to be in 2011. “Now we’re all getting on the same page and that’s why it’s clicking.
“You don’t want to say it’s a positive situation right now,” she added. “But it definitely is because when tournaments come, and the tougher teams are coming, we’re going to have those girls that have experience now.”
“For most teams, 5-2 is not bad,” said Park, as his team also improved to 3-1 in the OCC. “But for us, we’re not where we want to be.”
But back in 1970, the New York Knicks were not where they wanted to be either, having fallen into a 3-3 tie with the Los Angeles Lakers during the NBA Finals, after losing Game Six when Knicks forward, and future Hall of Famer, Willis Reed was sidelined with a torn muscle in his thigh.
He was not expected to even dress for the seventh and decisive game against the Lakers, but he shocked the crowd at Madison Square Garden and gave his team the emotional lift it needed to win its first ever NBA title, as he walked onto the court during warm-ups, starting the game and scoring a total of only four points.
Strother – despite what she might jokingly tell you – does not know about Willis Reed or what he did.
She does know that Ditmars is already off of her crutches and ahead of schedule to return to the Lady Knights lineup.
When the 2010 All-Ohioan does walk out on the court for the Lady Knights again, think of the kind of lift it will give the entire team.
Championship winning teams know just how important that kind of lift can be.
Published: September 10, 2011
