Hampshire's run ends

Mike Kozenczak

Font Size

Email

Bookmark

Black Text

White Text

WOODSTOCK -- Beyond the final score, the biggest difference in the Marian Central Class 3A Sectional final on Thursday night may have been the 7-1 advantage the host Hurricanes held in senior leadership on the roster over Hampshire.

The experience paid dividends as Marian held off a late rally to defeat the Whip-Purs 25-19, 25-19. Hampshire, which stepped up to class 3A this season, finished with a record of 36-3.

"When you have a lot of seniors, they play with that dire urgency, knowing that it could be their last game," said Hampshire coach Karen Whitehouse, whose team placed second in 2A last year. "It can make a big difference. With such a young team, we just didn't seem to have that sense of urgency, at least not until it was too late. And they did."

The Whip-Purs started and finished strong, but did not fare very well in between. Hampshire jumped out to a 6-1 lead in Game 1, but that quickly disappeared. Soon afterward, Marian (32-6) went on a 6-0 run to pull ahead 10-8.

The Whip-Purs continued to come unglued, committing nine unforced errors the rest of the way in Game 1, as Marian pulled away to the win. The Hurricanes then blew out to an 18-4 lead in Game 2 and led 23-8 before Hampshire tried to make a late comeback.

The Whip-Purs rattled off eight unanswered points, including seven straight service points from Jennifer Hubbe to pull to within 23-16. Hampshire got as close as 24-19 before Marian finally sealed the win.

"It would have been nice to see what would have happened if we would have played the entire match the way we did at the end," said Whitehouse. "But we didn't. It's unfortunate that we picked tonight of all nights to have one of our poorer games. We just went through some long stretches where we couldn't pull it together."

Hampshire really struggled on both sides of the serving game. Marian recorded six aces, while the Whip-Purs had none.

Hampshire also had eight serving errors in the match.

"It was hard to run an offense, because we just had no serve receive," said Whitehouse. "We knew they liked to use the jump-float serve a lot, and we practiced for it, so I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was the crowd, maybe it was our inexperience catching up with us. So we'll just have to learn from this and come back stronger next year."

Junior Kara Wehrs led Hampshire with 10 kills and nine assists.

"I thought maybe we were going to come back and pull it out there," said Wehrs. "But we just came together too late. It's disappointing, but it doesn't take away from what we were able to do this year. And with almost everyone coming back, we'll be even tougher next year."