COLUMBIA CITY - For the first time in several seasons, Warsaw appeared to have some challenge in the championship match of the Columbia City Volleyball Sectional Saturday.

Or so it seemed.

The host Eagles entered the title game with an impressive 25-7 record this year, and had been playing their best volleyball of the season since a close loss to Warsaw in the regular season.

Columbia City also had an impressive win over Tippecanoe Valley in the semifinals, and the championship was in the Eagles' home gym. Everything pointed to a highly contested match.

Or so it seemed.

Warsaw came out hitting on all cylinders and won the first game 15-2 behind 11 consecutive points on the serve of senior Sarah Calhoun. The second game was more of what everybody had expected, but the Tigers still came out on top 15-8 and won their eighth straight sectional title.

"I thought we would come out fired up, but I didn't think we would be this fired up," first-year Warsaw coach Jamie Byron said. "The first score was quite a surprise to everyone here."

Columbia City just didn't know what hit them in that first game. Warsaw broke away from a 1-1 tie when Calhoun served up the 11 straight points, including three aces. The Eagles tried to stop the landslide twice with time outs about a minute apart, but when the run ended Warsaw held a 12-1 lead and went on to the easy win.

"When I was serving I was just thinking not to serve it to Tara Harshbarger because she is their best passer," Calhoun said. "And I was worried about getting the ball over the net because I hadn't been serving well this season. It was a big game for me just to step up to the line and concentrate and put it in the holes that they weren't."

Ironically, the run ended when Calhoun served one into the net.

It was a different path, but the same result for Warsaw in game two. Columbia City was right in the game as the scored was tied at 7-7. After exchanging several sideouts, the Tigers went ahead 8-7 on a kill by senior Lisa Estep.

Warsaw eventually pushed the margin to 14-7 when junior Katie Clemens got a block for a point and Harshbarger, also the Eagles' best hitter, had her spike end up in the net. The Tigers would eventually win the second game, which took about twice as long as the first game, 15-8.

"We just relaxed and played our game," Calhoun said. "Usually we play to the team's level, but this time we were excited the whole way through and our intensity level was just sky high, and we just put them away."

Even though the Tigers had won the sectional the previous seven years, all under the coaching of Penny Salm, Warsaw almost seemed to enter the championship as the underdogs. The role didn't seem to sit too well with the Tiger players.

"Columbia City came in and said they were going to beat Warsaw, and everybody was saying they were going to beat us," Estep said. "So we just said we are going to have to show them who is the boss and just play our game."

Estep and Calhoun led the way for the Tigers with 13 and 8 kills respectively. Calhoun added four aces, while Clemens went for 2 kills and 3 blocks.

Also, Calhoun had 15 digs, Melissa Bolles added 12 digs and 20 assists, Alyssa Raphael 12 digs, Ann Fribley 2 kills, and Katie Clemens 2 kills.

As intense as Warsaw started the match, it was interesting that afterward Byron said one of the keys was the relaxation that the Tigers did between sessions at freshman coach Shirley Fleming's house on Saturday.

"We went and relaxed between games, and that was very important," Byron said. "Right before we left, we watched the old film on Columbia City. That helped us prepare."

After starting the season 9-2, then slowing down and going only 10-12 in their final 22 games and falling out of the top 20 teams in the state for the first time in awhile, Estep believes the Tigers are now on the upswing.

"We have started to come together and play as a team," she said. "It is really exciting right now because once it is over, it is over. At the beginning of the season, we played pretty well, and then it went downhill, but now we are picking it back up. We are ready for regional."

Byron now has accomplished something that not even Salm did in her first season as coach of the Tigers - win a sectional title. Byron also won a sectional title as a player at Peru High School (also the Tigers), and said there wasn't much difference in the feeling afterward.

"The emotions are still the same as when I was a player," she said. "It is just on a different level. In a way it is almost sweeter because I am the coach of these girls, and I gave them my input, but it was totally up to them. They went out and executed just the way we had planned it. I just couldn't be more happy."

And it wasn't much different for the six Tiger seniors, some of whom have won four sectional titles in four years.

"She has been a great coach. She stepped into big shoes, and we all respect her," Calhoun said. "Since she was a college player, it brought our level of play up a little bit."

Warsaw (22-14) will play the winner of the Taylor Sectional, Kokomo, in the second game of the Huntington Regional Saturday at around 12:30 p.m.

"We are going to stick to our regular schedule and not do anything drastic," Byron said. "We are going to go back to the gym, business as usual, and we are going to have another good week of practice. Our intensity and focus this week in practice was just outstanding. We knew that this was the sweetest time of the season, and we wanted to be able to reap the benefits." [[In-content Ad]]