Hononegah ends Dundee-Crown's season

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:10PM

Forget the tears and long faces usually associated with losing teams in a season-ending post-season defeat.

After Rockton Hononegah's volleyball team dealt Dundee-Crown a 25-21, 25-20 loss in the Jacobs Class 4A Sectional Tuesday, the Chargers walked away with heads held high. A few even managed smiles.

"It didn't matter if we won or lost tonight," Chargers senior defensive specialist Tanna Svec said. "We'll have that regional for the rest of our lives."

After going 5-30 in the regular season, the Chargers won three straight in the regional as a fourth seed, then gave Hononegah's taller lineup a difficult time in two sectional sets before calling it a season at 8-31.

"We gave it our all," junior outside hitter Alexa Shemanske said. "I'm so proud of what we did and what we accomplished this year."

With only one player taller than 5-10, and facing an Indians team that had six players 5-10 or taller, the Chargers kept digging up spikes and bumping hard serves, but ultimately gave up late runs in both sets.

The Chargers led 21-20 in the first set before Hononegah scored the final five points in succession. Then D-C led 17-16 in the second set after taking a 13-7 advantage earlier. But Hononegah scored seven straight points to get to push D-C to the brink.

Hononegah's 5-11 outside hitter, Kristen Kotch, had two kills on spikes to end the match, although the Chargers clawed back within 24-20 after trailing 23-17.

"Our offense was really bad tonight," Svec said. "We just didn't have an offense at all."

Hononegah's 6-foot-1 middle blocker Alivia Holman pelted the Chargers with spike after spike off quick sets early. She finished with 10 first-set kills and had seven of the last 16 Hononegah points on kills in the set.

It wasn't the first time the Chargers ran into a team with a middle blocker that tall in post-season. Larkin's hard-spiking Olivia Kofie and Brianna Stewart had a game much like Hononegah's Holman and 5-10 Victoria Quintanilla, and the Chargers coped to win a regional title.

However, as Shemanske pointed out, "The big difference from Larkin was they were freshmen and that was what they knew how to do (spike) -- that was all they could do.

"But (Hononegah) new how to progress. They were stronger."

Hitting by Lauren Mosher and Rebekah Hischke kept D-C in the lead early in the final set, but once Hononegah forged a tie at 17, the match took on a different tone. The Chargers then found themselves scrambling extensively after spikes, much of the time without benefit of a well-executed block.

"Blocking also killed us," Williams said. "If we would have blocked tonight, it might have been a different story."

D-C had three kills from Rebekah Hischke and two by Shemanske, 15 digs from Carlin Faulkner, eight digs by Cassie Sommers and seven digs from Alexis Holm. Rebecca Wika made nine assists.

"No matter what happened tonight, winning five games in the whole season and then winning the regional ... words can't describe it," Williams said. "Just getting here was huge for them."

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