STATE VOLLEYBALL: Defending champions sweep Cavaliers

By Jim Holland, Journal staff | Friday, November 21, 2008

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RAPID CITY— Sioux Falls Christian received a complete game performance up and down the roster, particularly from  senior middle hitter Kaitlin Johnston, to open defense of the Chargers’ state Class A girls volleyball title.

Johnston’s 12 kills, three ace serves, three blocks and six digs helped the Chargers’ sweep St. Thomas More 25-15, 25-17,

25-18 in Thursday’s first round of the South Dakota state Class A tournament at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.

Johnston’s strong play at the net really showed in the third set.  She tallied five kills and a block in boosting the Chargers to an early 9-3 lead.

Johnston couldn’t explain the offensive outburst. In the end she just chalked it all up to teamwork.

“I don’t know, I guess it was just the adrenaline of senior year and knowing that we need to defend our state title,” Johnston said. “There’s certain things we need to do to do that, so we all had to come together.

“We knew we had to get up on our blocks, because we knew they had good hitters.”

Suzy Ledeboer also had three blocks, with Amanda Van’t Hul  adding two blocks and Morgan Schaap one stopper.

More tried to close the gap throughout the match but the points came in bunches for Sioux Falls Christian.

Morgan Stern added eight kills and six digs for the Chargers, 23-8.

“They came back from 0-2 last year at the state tournament, so we knew they could come back. We let up a little bit in games two and three, but we held our own,” said Sioux Falls Christian coach Darci Wassenaar. “We didn’t want to let them in at all, because we know they’re a good team.

“They made a couple runs on us near the end of game two.  We told the girls they just need to relax and stay aggressive.  I told them that we needed to put it away at the end and not give them any more. The girls really responded well to that.”

More coach Brandon Kandolin said the Cavaliers just couldn’t get untracked against the Chargers.

“Their serving gave us fits. They were able to rattle off different rallies just by serving. They made us pay. They had hitters coming every which way and they were able to put it down,” Kandolin said. 

“I don’t think I can remember more than two or three errors, other than serving errors that they had. They’re just solid all around,” he said.

“We had too many unforced errors. You have to have a hard time thinking you’re going to win when you’re giving them a third of their points,” Kandolin said.

Erin Duffy led the Cavaliers’ attack with seven kills. Alexa White had 14 digs, with Katy Friedel tallying 12 digs and Danielle Nielson 10 digs for More,which is now 27-8.

More will play Winner in the first consolation round semifinal today at 10 a.m. Sioux Falls Christian will meet Wagner in the first championship round semifinal at 6 p.m.