No. 10 New London needs second game rally to down Lady Hawks 2-0
BY CHUCK VANDENBERG
PCC EDITOR
NEW LONDON - The Central Lee girls have a few things to work on, according to head coach Amy Cook. But the Lady Hawks gave Class 1A No. 10 all they wanted in Southeast Iowa Superconference tournament pool play Thursday night.
The two squads met up in the third and final round in the New London pool after going 2-0 in the first two rounds.
Central Lee came in as the No. 5 seed in the tournament and beat No. 12 seed Highland 21-16, 21-15 and then knocked off No. 13 Columbus Junction 21-8, 21-9 before rolling up against the No. 4 seeded Tigers.
New London ran away with the first game 21-13. The Lady Hawks got as close as 2 at 6-8 when Makayla Morrison's attack went long, but grazed the fingertips of the Tiger defender for the point.
But New London got 14 of its 21 points on hitting and defensive errors on the Lady Hawks' side of the net. The Tigers got three kills from Natalie Burden and one each from Tysann Gipple and Camryn Lair. Emma Nye and Aliyah Christensen both had aces for New London in the win.
Central Lee would clean those up in the second game and take to the offense. The Hawks took the lead at 4-3 on a kill from the left corner from Morrison and then pushed that lead to 12-6 in an 8-3 run that featured four more kills from Morrison, including three in a row at one point.
Meghan Hopp would have a couple of attacks go long from her middle hitter spot on quick sets from Macy Watkins to allow the Tigers to close the gap to 13-10.
Hopp would then turn things around and get two kills at 14-10 and 16-11. The Tigers would battle back to a one point game at 17-16 when Morgan Jones served up an ace prompting a Central Lee timeout.
Out of the break, the Lady Hawks would get a set and kill from Alivia Myhre and then a block at the middle from Myhre and Watkins to make it 19-16.
Two hitting errors on the Hawks' side brought the Tigers back within one at 19-18 and then back-to-back kills from the Tigers' Sophie Mallott gave the Tigers the lead 20-19 forcing another Hawks' timeout.
With Elly Manning serving on match point, the Hawks got a bump and set to the middle of the floor a bit back from the net and an attack from Meghan Hopp missed giving the Tigers the comeback win.
Hopp had 21 kills on the night and 10 digs. Morrison finished with 23 kills. Macy Watkins led the Hawks in assists with 50, 24 of which came in the New London match feeding Hopp and Morrison to her left. She also had four blocks on the night.
"I personally think that our passing and our serve receive is still an issue," Cook said, "We couldn't get our passes to the setter and stay behind the ball. It's just the fundamentals that we struggle with."
Cook said she could see the girls sag as the momentum switched to New London at the end of the second game.
"We keep our energy up, and we're going to continue to work on those weaknesses, but our girls need to mentally be able to sustain through the whole game, too.
The Hawks will enter Saturday's finals at Southeastern Community College in West Burlington as the No. 2 seed out of the New London pool. The top two teams from each pool advance to the championship bracket
Central Lee will now play Holy Trinity Catholic in the first round of the finals Saturday with matches starting at 5 p.m. The Crusaders won Pool 3 on Thursday at Wapello.
Burlington Notre Dame and Mediapolis were first and runner-up in Pool 1 in WACO. West Burlington and Winfield-Mt. Union finished 1st and 2nd out of Pool 2 at Louisa-Muscatine.
On Saturday, Notre Dame will take on Winfield-Mt. Union and Mediapolis will play West Burlington. Central Lee and Holy Trinity will square off and New London will take on Wapello in the first round of the finals.
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