Sycamore handles Hampshire in 2

Hampshire girls volleyball coach Karen Whitehouse says serve and serve receive have been the two areas of strength for her team this season.

The Whip-Purs picked the wrong time to let those two parts of their game break down.

Tall and talented Sycamore exploited every breakdown in Hampshire's game and defeated the Whips 25-17, 25-12 in the championship match of the Class 3A Kaneland regional Saturday afternoon in Maple Park.

The Spartans, who finished third in the Class 3A state tournament last year, won their third regional title in the last four years. They will take on Crystal Lake Central Tuesday in the Belvidere sectional.

“The strongest part of our game all year has been our serve and serve receive,” said Whitehouse, whose team finished 19-16. “But our serve receive really fell apart today.”

Hampshire also had no anser for Sycamore seniors, 6-foot Jill Johnson and 6-3 Evyn McCoy. Johnson led the Spartans (25-6) with 7 kills and McCoy had 5 kills and 6 blocks.

“Our goal was to stop (McCoy) and I thought we did a good job on her,” Whitehouse said. “But you have to play consistent with a team like (Sycamore) and we didn't do that today.”

Hampshire hung tough early in Game 1, trailing just 11-9 after a kill by Michelle Dumoulin. But McCoy slammed a kill to give Sycamore the serve back and the Spartans went on a 6-0 run to open up a 17-9 lead that the Whips couldn't recover from. Hampshire had four unforced errors during the run.

The Whips did fight, though, making it 18-15 on an Alex Dumoulin kill and 19-17 on a Sycamore error, but after the Spartans were able to dig up a powerful kill attempt from Alex Dumoulin, they ran out the game, winning on an ace serve from sophomore Hannah Knox.

“We were very prepared for this game and we knew what they were going to do,” Whitehouse said. “We just couldn't execute.”

That became even more apparent in Game 2 when Sycamore jumped out to a 5-0 lead and never looked back. The Spartans had leads of 7-1, 10-3 and 14-4, never allowing Hampshire back in the game. A Whip-Purs' hitting error ended things 37 minutes after the first serve.

“(Sycamore) came out really strong and I think we were caught by surprise some,” said Alex Dumoulin, who had 6 kills in her final high school volleyball match. “Our serve receive broke down and we can't run an offense with a serve receive like we had today.”

Alyssa Kissane added 6 kills for the Whip-Purs, while Leigh-Anne Libby had 12 assists and Kelly Meathe 11 digs.