Collegiate bounces STAB in 5 games

The previous meeting between the St. Anne’s-Belfield and Collegiate volleyball teams was nothing short of a dogfight, with the Saints edging the Cougars 3-2 in a tight fifth game.

On Wednesday evening the two teams went at again in their semifinal match of the LIS tournament, but this time around it was the Cougars who came out on top 3-2 (21-25, 25-19, 25-21, 17-25, 15-8).

“It was a war just like last time,” said Collegiate coach Bill Shalley. “It was a well fought match.”

With the match tied at one, it appeared that Collegiate had all but solved STAB in game three when the Cougars went up 17-5.

The Saints rallied to make it game before coming up short 25-21, but the momentum carried over into game four, which they won convincingly 25-17 to set the stage for the fifth game.

Unfortunately for St. Anne’s, the fifth and final game was marred by a handful of mental mistakes, which allowed Collegiate to jump out to a 7-0 lead.

“When we play together it’s amazing,” said STAB coach Stacey Gearheart. “But when you don’t play together we have a real hard time.”

The Cougars held on to their lead and went on to win 15-8 and advance to the finals to meet Covenant for the second year in a row.

“Our kids just stepped up,” Shalley said. “Some of our kids just had career nights.”

The bench made the biggest difference. When the Cougars lost Kali Newlen up front, Tegan Chapman came in and played the strong defense Shalley needed against STAB’s Shelby Linthicum. Dominique Meeks led the way offensively for the Cougars with her 13 kills.

In the early going, Linthicum and Smith were more than Collegiate could handle, combining for 11 kills.

“We had found a couple of weaknesses in the regular season and we capitalized,” Gearheart said.

In game two the Cougars switched defensive schemes.

“I can’t really say what we did because we’ll be playing another team [Covenant] with a great middle,” said Shalley. “But when you take their best player, and we didn’t eliminate her by any means, but if you keep her less effective than she usually is against us, that affects the whole team.”

Linthicum still finished the night with a match-high 20 kills and four blocks, but her touches were limited particularly in the third and fifth games.

“They picked up a lot of the easy stuff we were giving them,” Linthicum said, “We tried to just continue swinging away, but our passes weren’t getting up to the net.”

Her counterpart, Ladi Smith, also had a big game, chipping in 21 assists, nine digs, six aces and three blocks, but in the end it wasn’t enough to overcome the mental mistakes and sloppy passing.

“We were fine in the beginning and emotions were high and probably took over and that’s how they got the best of us,” Smith said.

While the tournament came to a frustrating end, the Saints advanced further into the LIS tournament than they have in the past four seasons, thanks in part to their senior duo of Smith and Linthicum. Currently ranked eighth in the state, the Saints are still in the hunt for the state tournament, but will have to wait it out through the weekend to see if they can hold on to the last spot.