DUNLAP - In a contest between two evenly-matched volleyball squads, the Concord Minutemen just had more than the Warsaw Tigers.
Opening their postseason at Concord High School Thursday, the Tigers fell in five games to the host Minutemen (25-20, 21-25, 26-24, 17-25, 15-10), ending their season at 20-13."Whenever you lose, it's disappointing," first-year Warsaw coach Mike Howard said. "We had high hopes and high expectations. We didn't quite get the job done tonight. Hopefully we learn from this, because we don't like this feeling."
That melancholy feeling was spawned from a 15-10 fifth-game loss, which came after Warsaw had just defeated Concord 25-17 in the fourth.
"We had trouble getting momentum started in the fifth game," Howard said. "We just couldn't get anything going. They made a little run and we stopped hitting the ball. That was pretty much the match at that point."
In that fifth game, Concord used an early 4-0 run to take a 5-2 lead, a lead the Minutemen never relinquished.
"We've been working all year on finishing the match," Concord coach Laurie Rhoades said of her 23-10 team. "There's been a few times when we haven't been able to get it done. Tonight, we did."
An instance of the Minutemen not being able to get it done was in a four-game loss to the Tigers (19-25, 25-23, 27-25, 25-18) on Oct. 9 in Warsaw.
"We watched the video tape and saw a lot of things we needed to work on," Rhoades said. "In the second game, the first time we played them, we were ahead, and we let them get back in. Once we let them get back in, we let down."
"(We) showed defeat on their faces," she added. "Tonight, there was no defeat on their faces. Even in that fourth game, when we lost 25-17, they were ready to come back and win that game. They wanted to finish it."
In the highly-contested match, with both teams going back and forth with serves, it was the little scoring spurts that made the difference.
In Games 1 and 3, Concord picked up wins by using 5-0 and 4-0 runs to close each game, respectively. In Game 2, it was Warsaw that closed strong, using a 4-0 run to win 25-21.
The fourth game once again saw a scoring run make the difference, as Warsaw reeled off four-straight points midway through, to turn a 15-13 advantage into a 19-13 lead, resulting in the 25-18 game win.
With the match split at 2-2, Warsaw battled Concord to 4-5 and 7-8 scores in the fifth, but each time Warsaw came close, Concord responded with scoring spurts.
Warsaw junior Corrine Coon finished with 11 kills and sophomore Natalie Decker and junior Sarah Shilling each finished with 10, but as the match went on, those points were much tougher to get.
"We knew from the first time we played, they don't let any ball die," Howard said. "You just have to get extra effort to bring the ball down on them."
While Warsaw was struggling to get the ball to hit the court, Concord was using its big hitters to attack from the sides.
On the night, Concord senior Khristian Hildreth had a match-high 14 kills, while senior Callie Hartman had nine. Despite their numbers, Howard was actually more concerned with a couple of other girls, including senior Libby Rhoades, who finished with seven kills.
"They're pretty tough to defend, but I thought we were all right tonight," Howard said. "What hurt us was their right-side attack. We just didn't have an answer for that, except for a couple times."
"What hurt us was having that second option on the right side," he added. "(Libby Rhoades) did a nice job of swinging at the ball from that side."
Concord junior reserve Lexi Reister also caused Warsaw problems, coming off the bench to post seven kills, while also getting three assists and two blocks.
"Callie and Khristian came through on the outside, Libby on the backside and Lexi Reister on the inside," Rhoades said. "(Reister) hasn't played almost all season. She played usually one game, but she came through so well in that first game, that she played all five tonight. She was a big difference for us."
Outside of the offensive outputs, the front row for each team also brought some defense.
For Concord, sophomore Melanie Meyers made things tough on the Warsaw hitters, posting seven blocks, while teammates Hartman, Hildreth and junior Jenny Hershberger each had four.
Warsaw was led in blocks by Decker's six, with junior Kaitlin Reichard leading the way with four aces, but the stats weren't enough to continue the Tigers' season.
On the other side, the win moves the Minutemen into the second round of the tournament for the first time in many years.
"In the last six or seven years, we've either played (Elkhart) Memorial or Mishawaka in the first game," Rhoades said. "So we hadn't won a sectional game. So to play a quality team like Warsaw - and they are an excellent, excellent team. To play someone like that, that will give them some confidence going into the next round."
