Sunday, Nov. 08, 2009

Midgets will get to defend volleyball crown at state tourney

GREENVILLE -- The weight of lofty preseason expectations was lifted off the Freeburg Midgets' shoulders Saturday night.

Chelsi Hummert had a team-high eight kills while Sam Kassing added seven and Colleen Yarber six as the Midgets dispatched Murphysboro 25-16, 25-17 at the Class 2A Greenville Super-Sectional.

The defending state champion Midgets (37-2) were the no-brainer choice to make it back to the state tournament in Normal, but coach Lesa Bolt said that only added to the stress level.

Much of it was alleviated with the Midgets' 20th straight victory.

"I think the pressure is off now," Bolt said. "Last year was the Cinderella season and we didn't know if we could get there. This year, we knew that we could get back there, so there's been this pressure the whole time to try and get back to state.

"We're still going to state and there's a lot of work to be done, but the weight of just getting there is off."

Freeburg will take on Carlinville (36-3) at 11:30 a.m. Friday in the semifinals at Illinois State University's Redbird Arena. Carlinville advanced with a 27-25, 25-21 victory over Effingham St. Anthony at the Pana Super-Sectional.

"It definitely feels like a weight has been lifted," said Yarber, a senior outside hitter. "If we would have fallen short one game before state, it would have hurt way worse than losing at state."

It's the eighth trip to state for Freeburg, which will be gunning for the school's fourth state championship to match the ones it won in 1979, 1982 and 2008.

Murphysboro coach Mike Layne thinks the Midgets can clear some room in their trophy case for another one.

"Absolutely," Layne said. "They definitely look like a state championship team. They're clicking on all cylinders and their libero is doing an awesome job of passing. They have so many weapons."

It was a landmark season for the Red Devils, who won the school's first sectional title in volleyball. Murphysboro finished 34-4, with two of the losses coming to the Midgets.

Murphysboro dropped a 25-18, 28-26 decision to the Midgets on Sept. 12 at the Mascoutah Tournament. Layne marveled at Freeburg's balance, which had four players with at least four kills.

The Red Devils couldn't match that balance as senior Jessica Whitehead had eight kills and freshman Jessica Stanton had three.

"They have a hugely balanced attack," Layne said. "We felt if we could pass the ball, we could stay with them. The crowd saw when we did pass the ball, we did fine. But when we gave them free balls, that doesn't bode well for this type of competition."

Tied at 7 in the first game, Freeburg seized control behind the serving of junior libero Maddy Hogan.

She peeled off a eight-point service run that featured two kills from Hummert and Kassing and two blocks by 6-2 senior Kayleigh Cox. It swelled Freeburg's lead to 15-7.

"Initially, it was point for point and I think the girls were playing a little defensively to start and kind of curious as to what was going to be fired at them," Bolt said. "At that point, I felt that they were fine."

What may well be the point of the season for the Midgets came with Freeburg leading 17-10. Hogan nearly ran out of the gym to track down a kill attempt that ricocheted off a Freeburg player.

She chased it down by the far bleachers and passed it to Yarber, who somehow was able to get enough on the ball to send it over the net.

"I'm like 'I'm just going to bomb this ball and hope that it gets over,'" Yarber said. "I didn't want it to fall short. I was just hoping for the best."

Perhaps surprised the ball found its way back to their side of the court, the Red Devils were called for a lift and Freeburg was awarded the point.

"Oh my gosh, that was amazing," Bolt said. "I hope someone has that on video, because that was awesome."

Murphysboro --which fell behind 7-1, 12-3 and 17-8 in Game 2 -- committed 13 unforced errors, including six bad serves.

"We wanted to be aggressive in our serving," Layne said. "We're a 95 percent serving team throughout the year out of 2,000 serves, but we knew we just couldn't sit there and get them over. We needed to fire at them with some torpedoes. Turned out we hit the net too many times."