Burlington Central takes Hampshire tourney title again

Burlington Central believes that the risk of aggressive serving is well worth the reward.

That philosophy worked to perfection Saturday at the 8-team Hampshire Volleyball Tournament as the Rockets served nearly every team off the court as they went 5-0 to capture the championship for the third straight year.

Burlington Central took Richmond-Burton completely out of its offense in the first game of the championship match, then fought off a late charge in Game 2 to collect a 25-11, 25-22 victory.

The Rockets (21-3) ripped off the first 10 points in their semifinal match with Hampshire on Lexi DeWaard's serve and cruised to a 25-13, 25-10 win.

"We did really, really well on serving today and I think that's what pulled our team together as a whole," said DeWaard, who handed out 18 assists and added 3 kills in the title match.

"We'd much rather be an aggressive team that takes them out of their game and gets aces," co-coach Marv Leavitt said. "The bad part is you're going to miss some."

Burlington Central committed 10 service errors in the title match, but more than made up for it with 23 points on its serve.

DeWaard orchestrated a well-balanced attack as Summer Smith landed 6 kills and Lexi VanHiel added 5. Kendall Boron, Leah Murphy and Megan Lomas contributed 4 kills each.

"Our passers did a great job and that led to all those kills," DeWaard said.

Richmond-Burton chipped away at a 10-3 deficit in Game 2 to even the score at 20-20, but Burlington Central closed out the match on Boron's kill in the middle.

"They came back very strong in the second game, but I think we handled it pretty well," DeWaard said.

South Elgin went 3-2 on the day and collected third place with a solid 25-13, 25-17 decision over Hampshire.

The Storm (9-9) defeated Rockford Auburn (25-10, 25-15) and Woodstock (25-19, 25-22) in pool play, but struggled in a 25-19, 25-15 loss to Richmond Burton in the semifinals.

"That was a rough match against Richmond-Burton, but I had the girls talk about how they wanted to end the tournament and they decided they wanted to go home 3-2 with a third place trophy," said South Elgin coach Joni Plach.

"We just needed to work a lot on communication and we executed a lot better in the last match," said Storm senior Rachel Priore.

Hampshire (10-14) earned pool play wins over Marengo and Harvest Christian to reach the winners bracket, but ran out of steam as injuries took their toll.

"The girls did really well today, especially since we had a couple of injuries and a lot of lineup changes," said Hampshire coach Andrew Lindley.