Junior Lady Foxes regional champs

March 19, 2008 04:15 pm

— By CHARLES PENDELL
Sports correspondent
McLEANSBORO — It was an eventful night on March 11 as the Hamilton County eighth-grade volleyball Junior Lady Foxes of coach Debbie Barker made the short bus trip to Benton Middle School for the Southern Illinois Junior High School Athletic Association Class L regional.
The Junior Lady Foxes met up first with fourth-seeded Carmi and put a collar on the Bullpups, winning 25-15, 25-18 to send them into the championship contest against the second-seeded host Rangerettes.
Earlier in the season, the girls in green had lost to the Rangerettes in the Marion Tourney, but in that game, the Lady Foxes were missing one of their strongest players in Laci Laughard. This time Laughard was in the lineup, and she, Marcie Niekamp and Ali Zachman combined for 33 points as the Lady Foxes picked up a 28-26 first-game win, then roped the Rangerettes into submission in the second game, 25-18, to claim the Class L Benton Regional and advance to the state tournament at Herrin on Saturday.
Against Carmi, Alyssa Winemiller led the scoring with 14 points, followed by Laughard with 13, Zachman 8, Emily Miller 6, Holly Johnson and Jaci Gray each with 4 and Marcie Niekamp 1. Whitney Craddock had three spikes and one kill, Laughard had three spikes and one tip, Gray had two spikes, Niekamp had teo spikes and Zachman had one tip and three drives.
Against Benton, Laughard, Niekamp and Zachman all had 11 points, Gray 8, Miller 6, Winemiller, 5 and Johnson 1. Laughard had two spikes, Zachman had two spikes and two tips, Niekamp had one spike and one kill and Craddock three spikes.
The Lady Foxes then headed to the Class L state tournament, taking on the Red Bud Royals in the first round.
Red Bud went out to a 4-0 lead, but the Lady Foxes clawed their way back as Niekamp served three in a row, while getting a hit at the net from Gray and a slam by 6-1 middle hitter Craddock.
The Foxes trailed 13-5, but then Barker called a timeout to try to settle down her Kits. The stop in play worked, as the Lady Foxes’ Emily Miller served for 8 points to go along with kills at the net by Niekamp and Laughard and dinks and tips by Zachman and Winemiller.
That gave the Foxes a 14-13 lead, but Red Bud went back up 15-14.
Winemiller then served a point to tie the game, and a slam by Laughard put the green and white up by two.
A power slam by Zachman and a cross-court kill by Winemiller gave the Foxes a 19-18 advantage. Red Bud then took the lead at 20-19.
The Lady Foxes regained the lead at 23-22 as Zachman sent two missles into the Red Bud second row and Craddock made sure the second one stayed on the Royals’ side of the net with a block, but the Royals finally finished up the game, winning 25-23.
In the second game, the Lady Foxes went up 6-2 as Winemiller got hot from the service line, but later Red Bud finally tied the game at 12-12. After a Fox timeout, the Royals basically stayed in front by two, making the Lady Foxes exert most of their energy to get back into the contest. Laughard made a kill to keep the Foxes alive, but the Lady Royals prevailed 25-21 to end the Lady Foxes’ season.
“It was like the ‘deer in the headlights’ kind of thing,” Barker said. “It’s sad for them to lose today. They had so much talent and they couldn’t overcome their nervousness and bad serves today.
“Carmi is a really scrappy team. We played them scared and we were nervous. I felt we held our own with Carmi. Against Benton, we were more fired up.
“Against Red Bud, the two things that beat us were our serves were not in and we would hit for a while and then stop. Our stronger hitters were just not hitting today, and that hurt us, and we didn’t have any confidence in our playing. It looked like they knew what they wanted to do, but their bodies just wouldn’t do it. You see that with a lot of young players.
“It was a very successful season. ...We were co-Coal Belt Conference champs as we tied with Johnston City for that with a 9-1 record. They were 10-1. We beat each other.”
The Junior Lady Foxes finished 12-8 overall.

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