October 29, 2000

Hopewell-Loudon pushes to win title match over Riverdale

By John Montgomery
Sports Writer

BENTON RIDGE -- One team was aggressive, disciplined and able to push the attack even when it was stumbling. The other wasn't, and that was the key Saturday in the Division IV district title match at Liberty-Benton.

That first team was three-time defending state champion Hopewell-Loudon, which used a pair of scoring bursts in each game and a relentless attack to win the district title 15-2, 15-3 over Riverdale.

It was just a case of never letting up the attack, which is how the Chieftains like to play, according to Hopewell-Loudon coach Dave Reinhart.

"I just feel that we're going to be the aggressor," he said. "If we hit it out, we hit it out, but we're going to go down swinging. I won't expect anything else out of my kids.

"We try to dictate the tempo, starting with the serve, and hopefully ending up with the kill. That was the big key to us beating Calvert (in the district semifinal). We served aggressively and they never got a good offense going. That's kind of been our trademark the last three years."

The Falcons learned that the hard way.

"Hopewell was aggressive on everything," Riverdale coach Jon Price said. "If there was a bad pass, they still got a good attack off of it and we weren't always able to do that and I really thought that was the difference.

"The powerhouse that they are, they're disciplined," he said. "They always get an attack off, and they just kept pounding us. Sooner or later, you're going to make a mistake."

That's exactly what happened.

The 24-1 Chieftains, who will face Gibsonburg in Wednesday's second regional semifinal match at Elida, battled their way to a 4-1 lead in the first game before catching their first real break when Emily Clouse stepped to the service line.

The junior, who had 25 assists on the day, rattled off six straight service points with the help of an ace, Lauren Kelbley slamming three big kills, Stacy Jones (4 points, 8 digs) pounding a kill and a Riverdale hitting error.

The Falcons (18-7) finally broke the rally with a sideout, but Kelbley smacked another of her 10 kills on the day and then exited the game for Elizabeth Hoover (5 points) to come in and serve.

An ace, two Riverdale hitting miscues and a kill by Kim Norris, who finished with four on the day, pushed the Chieftains' lead to 14-1 before the Falcons got the serve back off a H-L hitting error.

The Falcons got their second point a few minutes later, but a long serve gave H-L the ball back and Kelbley pounded a kill for the first win.

It was much of the same in the second game, with Riverdale watching a quick 1-0 lead turn into a 3-1 deficit because of a double hit and kills by Mackenzie Crum (5 kills) and Kelbley.

But two more hard-fought points had Riverdale right back in the game, trailing just 4-3.

And that's where H-L again took over.

Four straight service points by Jones, courtesy of two Kim Norris kills, a kill by Beth Cook and a Falcon hitting error, increased the Hopewell-Loudon lead to 8-4.

Again, the Falcons broke the serve. But again, the Chieftains had the answer, with Cook (4 points, 9 digs) smacking another of her five kills in the match for a sideout.

In came Briana Popenberg (5 points), who served up two aces in between another Cook kill and a block for a kill by Kelbley.

Suddenly, it was 12-3 and the Falcons never recovered.

Clouse served up the last of her three aces for her ninth point a few minutes later and Riverdale's Dawn Farmer hit the ball long on a return to end the match.

And while it would be easy to look at the score and say Riverdale was no match for the Chieftains, Reinhart said the H-L's big margin of victories came down to just staying mentally tough.

"You have two excellent teams play, you're going to have just a back and forth game -- a lot of sideouts," he said. "The team I feel is mentally tough eventually is going to get the (scoring) spurt going. That's when you've got to take every advantage you can."