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Girls volleyball: Harvest Christian Academy advances to sectional finals
| Andrew A. Nelles~For Sun-Times Media |
Updated: November 1, 2011 9:51PM
After Tuesday night’s results it’s hard to believe Harvest Christian is the same team that split a pair of games with Morgan Park Academy at a tournament early in the season. The Lions are walking to a whole new tune these days and continued to march their way through the playoffs with a dominating 25-16, 25-15 win over the Warriors in the Class 1A sectional semifinals at Westminster Christian. Harvest Christian (24-11) has already captured a regional title in its first season as an IHSA school and will now battle for its first sectional title on Thursday.
“We are not playing like the same team that started the season,” said Harvest Christian coach Kim Floyd. “We have really come together as a team and are playing with a lot more confidence. We respect every opponent, but we go into every match now planning on winning. We have always felt we had the potential to get this far and the girls have worked extremely hard to make it happen.”
Once again sophomore Sydney Doby was a force to be reckoned with for Harvest Christian. The 6-0 middle hitter had a game high 10 kills plus four blocks and four aces.
“The first time we played them we weren’t playing our best,” said Doby. “Since then we have really come together as a team. I think the biggest difference has been our passing. We have really improved a lot. It’s nice when you are at the net to be able to depend and know the players behind you are going to get you the ball. It’s really exciting because you know you are going to get a lot of chances to hit.”
Doby certainly had plenty of oppurtunities in the first game when she knocked down seven kills. Morgan Park tried to put up a strong front against the Lions early on and even blocked a couple of early kill attempts by Doby. However, Harvest Christian ws hardly phased. After briefly falling behind 4-3 The Lions scored the next four points top take control. The Lions extended the lead to 17-10. When the Warriors tried to rally and pulled to within 17-14 the Lions answered back as doby drilled a kill through a double block to get her team back on track. Doby and Hannah Depledge each had aces down the stretch to close out Game 1.
“’We just kept swinging away,” said Floyd. “We just stayed persistant at the net.”
The Lions never traileed in Game 2. A six point service run including a pair of aces by Doby broke the game open for the Lions as they went up 14-5. They led by as many as 14 Kali Cramer, closed out the match with a kill. Cramer missed the first match against Morgan Park with a sprained ankle. She finished this match with seven kills and four assists. Katelyn Floyd had a five assists and four digs. Jade Martinez led the Lions with 12 digs.
“Their number 10 (Doby) is a great player,” said Morgan Park coach Tom Daker. “But they have a really good all around team. We have a good serving team and we were hitting the ball pretty well tonight, but they just returned evrery thing. I was really impressed with how far they have come and I think they have a good chance of going a lot further.”
Maya Palmer had a team high six kills for the the Warriors(23-9). Sam Panozzo had 12 assists.
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