Burlington Central repeats title at Hampshire
The road for Burlington Central to a second straight title at the Hampshire volleyball tournament was not without a few speed bumps and potholes. However, despite a loss to Harvest Christian early in the day the Rockets stayed the course and made it to the championship match where they defeated Marengo 25-10, 25-13.
"We take a lot of pride in our tradition of success," Central coach Marv Leavitt said. "These girls want to win. They want to win conference. They want to win regionals. They want to win every tournament. We had the little hiccup against a very good Harvest Christian team, but the girls got right back to being focused on doing what they came here to do."
The Rockets (19-5) had easy wins in pool play over Hampshire 25-7, 25-16 and Rockford Auburn 25-12, 25-15. Sandwiched in between was a 13-25, 25-23, 16-14 loss to Harvest Christian. Still the 2-1 pool play record earned the Rockets a spot in the semifinals of the championship round where they easily disposed of South Elgin 25-14, 25-14. Marengo (9-12) upended Harvest Christian in the other semifinal match 25-19, 25-18.
The Rockets had 12 aces and dominated the Indians in the championship match right from the start, jumping out to 14-3 lead in Game 1. Lauren Wiltsie had 3 aces during a 7-point service run.
The Rockets briefly fell behind in 5-2 in Game 2, but quickly regrouped with a 9-0 run behind the serving of Maddy Berry to pull ahead 11-5. Berry had 3 aces during the rally.
Later in Game 2 Wiltsie served 5 straight aces during an 8-0 run that extended the Rockets' lead to 19-7.
Wiltsie had a team-high 37 kills, 17 aces, and 30 digs on the day.
"We work a lot on our serving because we know we are not a very tall team, so we have to be able serve," Wiltsie said. "That loss to Harvest did fire us up. We just knew we had to reboot and get more aggressive. It was like we strapped on the seat belt and just kept moving forward."
Alexis VanHiel added 21 spike kills and another 11 block kills for the Rockets
"We achieved what we came here to do," VanHiel said. "We had a little bit of a letdown against Harvest. I think we just lacked some energy, but got refocused and pulled together."
Aly De Tamble had 27 kills, 58 digs, and 10 aces for Central. Berry added 17 kills, 8 blocks, 10 aces, and 45 assists.
"They are a tough team to earn points against," Marengo coach Mag Dobberlin said. "They have great servers and they cover the whole floor very well. I am still very happy with our team's overall performance. We were emotionally, physically, and mentally ready to compete all day."
Peyton Velasquez had 39 kills to lead the Indians.
After dropping its semi final match to Central, South Elgin (9-8-1) regrouped to knock off Harvest Christian 25-20, 25-19 in the third-place game. The Storm was 3-0 in pool play, but struggled and needed 3 games to knock off Richmond-Burton and Marengo.
"There were times when we played very well today," South Elgin coach Joni Plach said. "But other times when we just made too many mistakes. We had 10 hitting errors in the first game against Central alone. There's no way to overcome that. I'm happy we finished strong."
Rachel Priore had a team-high 28 kills on the day for the Storm. Renee Rush had 20 kills and 41 assists. Katie Innis finished with 18 kills, 9 aces, and 25 digs. Sarah Hallas added 12 kills and 19 blocks.
Harvest Christian got a stellar effort from Mikayla Robinson with 35 kills, 4 blocks and 7 aces and Ellie Burzlaff with 21 kills and 9 aces. Allie Frantz added 15 kills and 4 blocks for the Lions, while Amanda Cassidy had 15 kills and Ashlyn Floyd delivered 43 assists. Harvest's No. 1 setter, Jade Martinez, had 37 assists before going down with a sprained ankle in the Lions' pool play win over Hampshire.
The host Whip-Purs defeated Rockford Auburn and Richmond but lost to Central and Woodstock. Erin Foss had 23 kills and Brittany Laffin 74 assists to lead the way.