Concord Sweeps Warsaw Spikers In Sectional FinalDUNLAP – Warsaw defeated Concord twice in the volleyball regular season, including a five-set win for the Lady Tigers that kept Concord from a perfect Northern Lakes Conference record.
So in Saturday’s third matchup of the season, in the finals of the 4A Concord Sectional, the Lady Minutemen were all business in its 25-20, 25-23, 25-15 sweep of the Lady Tigers.
Concord won its second-straight sectional crown, and ended Warsaw’s season for the second year in a row, by learning from its past.
“We learned a lot,” Concord coach Kelly Chupp said. “We served aggressively and got them out of their system. I’m so proud of our servers. They were confident back there on the service line. We took Warsaw out of their game from the very beginning and never looked back.”
Other than very early in the first and second sets, Warsaw trailed all night long. A four-point run gave Concord a 15-9 lead in the opening set that the Lady Minutemen maintained.
Warsaw had a chance to climb back in the match after Kacy Bragg’s kill knotted the second set at 23 each. But a Lady Tiger serve in the net and a Audrey Staggs kill took the wind from the Lady Tiger sails.
“At 23-23, we didn’t win point 24. we got outhustled for that,” Warsaw coach Rich Ashmore said. “You gotta win those points to win a sectional.
“I haven’t seen the final stats, but we made a lot of mistakes we don’t normally make, and no one can afford to make and still win a sectional.”
After splitting the first four points of the third set, Concord hit the gas pedal and wouldn’t let Warsaw get untracked again. A 14-4 Concord run ended any hope of Warsaw getting back in the match.
Staggs had 10 kills for Concord and Ella Cunningham added five for the winners. By contrast, Hanna Leach led Warsaw with five kills, and Katie Swanson had four.
For Ashmore, it all boiled down to the simple things.
“I’m not disappointed. But in the biggest moments, at the key points in the season, you gotta show up and we didn’t come through,” he said.
“We’d beaten them twice when we were aggressive. Tonight, we weren’t aggressive, and they played really good defense. They were aggressive and got after it. We talked about how they were going to be like that, but we didn’t execute.”
SEMIFINAL WIN
Warsaw made it to the finals of the sectional with a 25-17, 25-12, 25-16 sweep of Goshen in the day’s first semifinal. The Lady Tigers made short work of the Lady RedHawks, finishing the first set in under 20 minutes and the match in a touch under an hour.
The Lady Tigers used short bursts of three and four points, rather than a long run, in the semifinal win.
