Rockford Christian Life sends Green Wave home
POPLAR GROVE -- Whether fatigue or inexperience caught up with St. Edward is debatable. Or maybe the Green Wave just ran into a pretty good volleyball team. In any event, the Green Wave's season came to an end in a 25-16, 25-22 loss to Rockford Christian Life in the finals of the Class 2A North Boone regional.
Earlier, the Wave defeated Rockford Christian, 28-26, 25-11, to reach the final.
Kristen Haggenjos had 10 kills in the final and 25 for the evening for St. Edward (15-20).
The loss ended a string of 8 straight regional titles for the Wave. The Eagles don't feature many hard hitters, but they bedeviled the Wave with their tips.
"We were waiting to make defensive plays from attacking, but they tipped a lot of balls and they caught us off guard," said St. Edward coach Jaime Walton."
Inexperience may have done in the Wave, which has only 2 seniors on the roster.
"I've said all year that we'll chalk the mistakes up to inexperience, but they played scared the whole time," Walton said. "They didn't know what to expect from this team."
Haggenjos wasn't about to use the team's inexperience as an excuse.
"You can blame it on inexperience all you want, but when it comes down to it, its about playing hard," she said. "If you lose you're done, and I don't know if some of our girls understand that yet. Now they do, so hopefully next year we'll remember this loss."
Tyler Barone had 17 digs in the two matches, and Katie Yohn added 13 kills and 19 assists.
With the first game tied at 4-4, the Eagles reeled off 7 straight points, the last 6 with Kristin Lewis serving, and the Wave never recovered. An emphatic kill by Haggenjos ended the run and sent Haggenjos to the stripe. But the Wave scored just one point on a tip by Yohn. The teams traded points before Christian Life rattled off 6 more in a row.
St. Edward fought a constant uphill battle in the second game as well. The Wave tied the game 3 times -- the last time at 19-19 -- but could never take the lead.
Trailing 24-21, the Wave got one last chance with a point and the serve on a service error. But with Yohn serving, Haggenjos' tip attempt fell just outside the line.
Christian Life (25-7), which has already secured the best record in school history, got 7 kills from Holly Wiersema.
In the first match, St. Edward broke up a close second game with a 15-1 run. Yohn served the last 9 points, which included 2 aces.