Tigers get by Comets

Published 12:00 am Saturday, November 5, 2011

By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE — It goes without saying that getting off to a good start in a playoff game is ideal, and that goes doubly so in a home game, where momentum can quickly mount behind you.

But even so, it hardly guarantees a victory. And on Thursday, visiting Dunham overcame a St. Charles team that started fast in each of the first two games of it’s bi-district playoff match, emerging with a win in four games to advance to the regional round, 25-19, 25-17, 22-25 and 25-18.

“We struggled offensively,” said St. Charles coach Kristin Sullivan. “They started serving really tough, and we couldn’t pass the ball and set up our offense. When we passed well, we played well. But a couple of their girls really stepped up with their serving, and it made a difference.”

The loss ends St. Charles’ season, the Comets closing the year with a mark of 20-18.

Dunham will travel next to square off with top-seeded Notre Dame, which had a bye in round one.

SCC was seeded 16th and Dunham 17th in the bracket, respectively.

Heather Orillion led SCC with five kills and 26 digs, while Raven Becnel led in assists with 12. Ashley Klibert had three aces.

The Comets led 16-10 in the first game and 15-10 in the second game. But on each occasion Dunham rallied to close out with a win, outscoring SCC after that point 15-3 in the first and 15-2 in the second to take a 2-0 lead and control of the match.

The teams traded points early in the first game, but after the teams were tied at six, St. Charles started to create some separation. Orillion served an ace to make it 8-6, then an Alex Hitt kill made it 9-7. Back to back aces by Dunham’s Mary Margaret Patterson cut a four point Comet lead to two, 12-10, but SCC scored four straight points from there, highlighted by a double block for a score by Emily Picciola and Nicole Doming.

The Tigers found their footing, and then some. Meghan McInnis served an ace and Madison Smith slammed a spike during a 6-0 Dunham run, then the Tigers scored four more in a row after an errant serve to take a 20-17 lead.

SCC scored the next two to cut it to one. It would be the Comets’ last points of the games; Dunham scored the next five, closed out by a Smith kill.

The second game was a near carbon copy of the first. An early swapping of points back and forth by the two teams gave way to the Comets asserting control, taking a 10-6 lead behind back-to-back kills by Chelsea Loupe and Alex Hitt. SCC led 12-7 before a run of three straight Dunham points, then 15-10 when SCC answered with three of their own, started by a Doming kill.

Dunham quickly cut the lead to one, scoring four in a row. SCC answered with a quick pair to push its lead back to 17-14. But again, Dunham finished in dominant fashion, scoring 11 of the final 12 points, nine of those with Sydney Duplessis at the serving line — she served three aces in the run. Smith had a kill and an ace and Patterson had two kills in the run.

“We made a lot of hitting errors today. But we played good defense and, especially late in these games, we served tough,” said Dunham coach Donna Pixley. “In each win, we had a girl step up and serve seven to nine balls in a row. The third game was one we couldn’t recover from.”

SCC staved off elimination in the third game, however, flipping the script this time after falling behind early. After a Picciola kill pulled SCC within one at 8-7, a kill by Dunham’s Ashley Smith followed by an ace by McInnis started a 4-0 run and gave the Tigers a 12-7 lead.

But trailing 13-8, SCC surged, scoring eight straight points capped by a Picciola hit. Dunham tried to turn the tables, as it had in the previous two games, scoring a couple of points in a row. But the Comets were not ready for their season to end just yet and had none of it. A Loupe kill made it 19-16. An Orillion ace pushed it to 21-16 and a Courtney Snyder spike made it 23-18.

Dunham made a late push to close the gap to one at 23-22, but a Doming kill and a return error sealed things for the Comets.

“We kind of switched roles there,” said Sullivan. “We came out with some tough serving, and they had trouble on offense. In the first two games, we were relying on them making mistakes for a lot of our offense. In the third game we started to generate it for ourselves.”

Dunham regrouped for the fourth game, though, and SCC could stave off elimination no longer. SCC scored the first two points, the second on a Doming kill. But a pair of Madison Smith kills book-ended a 10-1 run. SCC clawed back to make it 14-10 before Ashley Smith’s block, then later tap for a point fueled another Tigers’ run, this one 6-0. It made it 19-10. Patterson sealed things for good with a kill.

“We just weren’t going to lose,” said Madison Smith. “We wanted it so bad and we fought for it. It just makes us proud of the work we put in.”

Sullivan said the loss was disappointing, but that she felt proud of the Comets’ season as a whole. SCC bounced back this season to host a playoff game and post a winning record after a down season in 2010.

“I’m excited about what’s been accomplished,” she said. “Everyone worked at it all year. It’s a new system, a lot of new things implemented. To host a playoff game, and I thought they performed well, it’s something to build on. Dunham was just a little more consistent than we were.”

Said Orillion, “We played hard today and nobody gave up. We worked to get better and we accomplished more than we did a year ago.”