MIDDLEBURY - After a tight opening game, the Class 4A No. 5 Elkhart Memorial Lady Crimson Chargers ran away from Warsaw Saturday.
Playing in the volleyball sectional championship at Northridge High School, the two teams played to 10 ties and five lead changes in the first game, which Memorial won 25-22. After that, Memorial wrapped up its fourth-straight sectional title with 25-10 and 25-18 wins in the second and third games."They were on top of their ball control tonight," Warsaw coach Mike Howard said of Memorial. "They were able to stay in system all night. Even when we were swinging balls, they were touching them and getting them up. Everything was hard for us and everything was easy for them."
Featuring a lineup littered with big hitters, Memorial was led by junior Jordan Dillman's 16 kills, while senior Allie Sailor and senior Lisa Parsons each had seven and junior Cassidy Parsons finished with six.
The girls were able to get good swings thanks to good defense and passing, which saw senior Brianna Moore finish the three-game match with 37 assists.
"We wanted to serve tough to make their setter move," Howard said. "Brianna (Moore) was able to stay at the net and just set the ball wherever she wanted, which kept our block guessing. They play fast enough, that if you half to think and are half-a-second slow, it's too much."
Memorial moves on to the regional, hosting No. 1 Penn Tuesday. The winner of the match, moves on to the Warsaw Semistate Saturday.
On top of winning four-straight sectional titles, the Chargers have also been to the final four the past three years, finishing as the state runners-up last year.
"Each team is different to me," Jacquie Rost said. "If anything, I think there's more pressure each year. No team wants to be the team that doesn't win. We've worked really hard. There's been some losses where we've walked out of the gym with our tail between our legs, so to speak. We don't really take much for granted."
In last season's sectional at Goshen, Warsaw actually had a 2-0 lead on Memorial, before falling in the final three. This season, the Tigers showed they could play with the Crimson Chargers, but still fell 26-24, 25-20, 25-20 in Elkhart.
"We felt like we couldn't only compete, but could win the match if we were able to get them out of their system play," Howard said. "We felt like we had the athletes to run at the net with them, but we just made too many mistakes."
And Rost also thought Warsaw had the athletes to compete.
"We expected a tough match," she said. "Warsaw is an athletic, physical team. They're big and they swing hard, so we expected it to be tight. We knew we'd have to play level and focus on the basics.
"They're always a sort of mystery to me, but I know Mike does a great job," she added. "They're always athletic and he usually has some pretty tall girls."
Even though she doesn't see too much of the Tigers, Rost had seen enough to draw up a plan of attack.
"We felt like we had a good plan for how to defend their attacks," Rost said. "Each attacker has tendencies. We were able to watch them a little bit this morning and we had scouted them once before. I thought our defense played well."
Senior Natalie Decker led the Tigers with 13 kills and senior Madison Long had 20 assists, 10 digs and two blocks in her final match.
Along with losing Decker and Long, Howard will need to fill the holes vacated by Anne Holderman, Krista Bragg and Emily Umbaugh.
"We'll reload and have a much different look next year," Howard said. "I don't know who those players are going to be. We have a lot of work to do between now and next fall. It's exciting on the other hand, because it can be a fresh start and we have really good young players."
ELKHART MEMORIAL DEF. WARSAW 25-22, 25-10, 25-18
Kills - Jordan Dillman (M) 16, Natalie Decker (W) 13, Lisa Parsons (M) 7, Allie Sailor (M) 7, Jamie Lacheta (W) 7, Cassidy Parsons (M) 6; Assists - Brianna Moore (M) 37, Madison Long (W) 20; Digs - Melanie Troyer (M) 13, Dillman (M) 10, Long (W) 10, Sailor (M) 9, Sarah Johnson (W) 9, Anne Holderman (W) 7; Aces - Troyer (M) 2, Johnson (W) 2; Blocks - L. Parsons (M) 4, Long (W) 2, Holderman (W) 2, Artley Taylor (M) 1.5; Records: Memorial 32-4, Warsaw 27-8
