Marian C. tops Jacobs for Hampshire title

It took three games, but Marian Central was crowned the champion of the Hampshire girls volleyball tournament Saturday, defeating Jacons in the title match.

The Hurricanes (17-4) defeated the Golden Eagles 25-22, 18-25, 25-18 to secure the championship.

“I think that we’re starting to come together at the right time,” said Marian Central Catholic head coach Laura Watling. “It looks like we’re getting a lot more fluent in the way that we play, we’re eliminating a lot of our errors that we’re been making in the past and we’re staying aggressive. Every hitter that we have was going aggressively and we were able to use them all, and I think that’s what was making us so effective today.”

For the Hurricanes on the day, Tara Blake led the team in kills with 32 in the tournament, while Abby Gilland put up 88 assists, and Frankie Taylor had an incredible serving day with 19 aces.

After the second game, the Hurricanes were so frustrated with their loss that it pushed them to try even harder to win game three, and ultimately the tournament.

“I didn’t have to tell them much between games,” said Watling. “They didn’t like losing, they were pretty mad. They knew that we just did not play a clean game. A lot of it was on us because Jacobs cleaned up their game, so that put the pressure on us and we just weren’t responding. So we needed to respond better and we did that the third game. We came out strong.”

For Jacobs (17-7), getting through a tough set of teams to get to the championship was still an accomplishment. Head coach Lisa Dwyer saw good things from her Golden Eagles throughout the day.

“Our offense went pretty well,” said Dwyer. “Earlier in the day we struggled with our passing, but it got a lot better as the day went on. In Game 1 in this Marian match, our passing was a little shaky, but we cleaned it up in Game 2. We really have to make sure our passing is there so that we can utilize the offense that we have.”