Goshen junior Olivia Litzau leaps at the net against Walnut Hills on Thursday, August 24, 2017 at Goshen High School. The Lady Warriors dropped the match to the Lady Eagles 3-0.

Goshen junior Olivia Litzau leaps at the net against Walnut Hills on Thursday, August 24, 2017 at Goshen High School. The Lady Warriors dropped the match to the Lady Eagles 3-0.

By Garth Shanklin
Sports Editor

There are a lot of different uses for sports.

Sometimes, people use sports as a way to get in shape, a way to learn discipline and teamwork, or even a way to just have fun. Other times, sports can be used as an escape, a way to forget about the problems we face. On Thursday, August 24, the Goshen Lady Warrriors’ volleyball team took the court against Walnut Hills for a special game.

The game helped raise funds for the heart transplant team at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, the team that performed the surgery on Goshen student Peyton West.

West was scheduled to be at the game, but he died earlier in the week, making it difficult on Goshen players and coaches alike.

“This game was scheduled back in March,” Goshen head coach Amy Schmidbauer said. “It was in honor of him, he was supposed to be here. Unfortunately, things happen and he wasn’t in able to be here, so we played in memory of him.”

The Lady Warriors came out and struggled against Walnut Hills’ lineup in the first set, falling 25-9. Schmidbauer said the team made adjustments prior to the second set that paid off.

“We couldn’t block the outside hitter,” Schmidbauer said. “I have a short right side, so I made some adjustments the second and third set to try and make up for the height difference and the blocking shortage. We seemed to do better.”

The team did much better at the start of the second set. Goshen jumped out to a 6-0 lead, only to see Walnut Hills rally to make it 7-6. Goshen fought back, taking a 13-11 lead, but the Lady Warriors would be out-scored 14-3 over the rest of the second set, a 25-16 loss.

The third set saw Goshen rally from an early 6-2 deficit, but the squad could not pull within three points, eventually dropping the third set 25-18 and the match 3-0.

“That’s a good team out there,” Schmidbauer said. “I told [my team] the reason we opened with a really good team is because on Tuesday we have Western Brown at their place, that’s a league game against our biggest rival. We need to be prepared.”

Schmidbauer added that given the week the players and coaches have had, she was proud of the fact that the team fought back after the tough first set.

“They didn’t give up,” Schmidbauer said. “ They came out and did better every set. We had some great kills and our setter made some great sets. Our defense struggled at first but we moved around a lot. I was worried after that first set that they were going to go flat and they didn’t.”

Schmidbauer added the team hopes to rebound after the game and continue to improve.

“We’ve had a really tough week,” Schmidbauer said. “With the loss of Peyton we’ve barely practiced. We had a funeral to go to and visitations. For what it was I told them, it could only go up from here. I told them if we were to win that game it was miraculous.”