{"id":35358,"date":"2026-03-26T10:43:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=35358"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:43:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:43:56","slug":"eagles-down-patriots-in-home-volleyball-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/eagles-down-patriots-in-home-volleyball-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles down Patriots in home volleyball opener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

REX BREWER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the 2026 Boys Volleyball season begins, the Heritage Patriots held their home opener on Wednesday night. The Pats, in their fourth season of play, bring an experienced team to the floor. With Coach Abby Tigulis at the helm, she rolls out a team made up of mostly juniors and seniors. These seniors were freshmen at the start of this program. With the IHSAA sanctioning the sport two years ago, the number of schools in the area that have teams has grown each year.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 2026 boys’ volleyball season got underway Wednesday night on Cheri Gilbert Court at Heritage High School. (Photo by Rex Brewer)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This years team is led buy returning starters in Gerry Gerber, Graham Simmons, Corbin Roth and libero Chase Buuck. The roster also contains the usual cast of athletic Patriots, the same ones that graced the basketball court and football field earlier this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The match began with some evenly-matched JV play where the visiting Eagles took the first set 15-25, but in the second set the Pats battled back for a closer game at 22-25. It was the Eagles who bested the junior varsity in straight sets. In the second set, the home team had strong attacking from outside hitter Moo Eh Ka Lu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Notes from the night’s varsity action: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong start for the visitors as they get out to a 6-0 lead before the home squad gets on the scoreboard. The first set goes the way of the Eagles with strong net play by CC #15 Tanner Friend, leading the way with 4 kills. Inserted into the middle of set 1, Alden Bowers of the home team had a strong showing with 4 kills of his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set #1 Score 17-25 Eagles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CC starts off set 2 in the same fashion with a 6-0 Run before Coach T hits a TO,1-6 1-13 was the score for the second Time out, trying to slow the NE8 power house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was 2-16 before the Pats got another service opportunity to serve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set #2 Score 3-25 Eagles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hitting errors and service errors by the Eagles kept Heritage in the game as they take their first lead at 6-5, in Set #3. The home team rallies to a 10-7 lead before the Eagles coach Ryan Kumfer is forced to use his first TO of the match. With Alden Bowers block kill at 13-12 it sparked the run for the Patriots. At 20-15 the CC Coach was forced to use his second time out. Luke Cain had strong service runs to lead the team. The Eagles come soaring back to force the final time out of the set at 22-20 as the home team tries to hang on to their first set of the match. Hitting errors were the Eagles’ downfall as both teams struggle with early-season service errors and the Pats steal their first set of the night 25-22, to trail two sets to one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set #3 Score 25-22 Heritage<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set 4 starts out close and has four ties and four lead changes and Coach T is forced to call time at 9-13 as the Eagles start to pull away. Strong serves from Taylor of CC help the surge ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong CC serves by Swanson were a factor all night long. At 13-21 Tigulis uses her last time out to save the match. the larger NE8 school pulled away and took set #4 by the final score of 16-25.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set #4, Score 16-25<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Game stats:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CC kills were led by the 6’4″ middle hitter Tanner Friend, with 12, Brian Aumbsbaugh had 5 kills for the visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong service runs by Isaac Swanson.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kills for the home team:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alden Bowers led the way with 6, Graham Simmons and Gery Gerber had 5 and Jr. Myles Harris had 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solid defensive play from junior libero Chase Buuck kept the Pats steady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coach Tigulis and her team drop their home opener 3 sets to 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

REX BREWER WZBD.com As the 2026 Boys Volleyball season begins, the Heritage Patriots held their home opener on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,51,26,55],"class_list":["post-35358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-featured","tag-heritage","tag-sports","tag-volleyball"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1000009374-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1441&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35366,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35358\/revisions\/35366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}