Columbia unleashes powerful weapons to knock off Althoff volleyball

Once Columbia High senior volleyball standout Colene Hamilton unleashed the laser Thursday night, the Althoff Crusaders had no luck finding a force field or any other form of protection.

The hard-hitting Hamilton pounded down a career-high 19 kills, helping Columbia overcome a 25-23 loss to Althoff in the first set before securing 25-23 and 25-6 victories to win the match.

Key player

Hamilton had only three kills in the first set as the Eagles watched a 19-15 lead disintegrate thanks to an emotional Althoff squad pushing through for a 25-23 victory. Hamilton anchored the second-set win with eight kills, then added eight more in the dominant third along with a five-point service run.

“I just think our attitudes changed,” said Hamilton, who continues to climb up Columbia’s all-time kills list with 737 as a four-year starter. “We thought that they were just going to give it to us — and no team’s going to give it to us. We’ve got to work for every point.”

Hamilton and the Eagles found a much better offensive rhythm in the second and third set, sending Althoff defenders diving all over the court trying to pick up balls.

“I think I’ve just got to get in the groove,” Hamilton said. “Once we started connecting it was easy from there. After we got ourselves in our groove, we got them.”

Althoff coach Sara Dietrich agreed.

“In that third set that No. 16 (Hamilton) just took off,” Dietrich said. “She’s such a stud ... she took control and forced us to make some errors. We couldn’t adjust. It’s such a learning experience for us now because we saw a glimpse of how good we played in the first set, then we tapered off.

“We’ve got to try to get that consistency and not let what happened in that third set happen again.”

A large crowd watched two of the area’s top teams battle and they got their money’s worth with a full three sets. Jordan Hausmann added 10 kills for the Eagles (2-0) while Liz Fleming piled up 26 assists.

Key sequence

Althoff (0-1) nearly pulled out the win in two sets, cutting Columbia’s lead to 23-21 and 24-23 before losing 25-23. There was nothing close in the third set as the Eagles flew away, rolling up a 12-2 lead and never looking back.

“It could have totally gone either way,” said Columbia coach Kelly Landgraf, whose team features 10 seniors. “We were not focused when we came in here tonight. We were not ready, we did not look ready to play. I think that we underestimated some of the things that they were going to be able to run and I believe it was lack of focus.

“We weren’t consistent offensively. I don’t feel that we were consistent offensively until the third game.”

Having weapons like Hamilton and Hausmann helped settle everyone down.

“I saw a little bit different effort from everyone, everybody started driving a little bit harder,” Landgraf said. “I thought everybody did a really good job pulling the block and that freed Colene up offensively. She definitely came alive.”

Althoff got six kills from senior Emily Myatt and four each from freshman Karinna Gall and Addie Burris. After a strong first set, some errors began to creep into Althoff’s game just about the time Hamilton and Hausmann began raining down kills.

The combination proved lethal.

“There’s no reason to take anyone for granted,” Landgraf said. “Althoff’s a great team, they’re going to be tough. But I also think that we’re extremely talented and I don’t think we were consistent. We made a lot of mistakes that a senior-laden team should not make.

“The third game looked like a completely different team. Much better effort all the way around, mroe focused.”

This story was originally published August 25, 2016 at 9:55 PM with the headline "Columbia unleashes powerful weapons to knock off Althoff volleyball."