Published: October 25, 2009 12:06 am      

VOLLEYBALL: Fast start not enough

Harrison knocks off Logan to win 3rd straight sectional title

LAFAYETTE — Logansport’s volleyball team gave Harrison its best punch. The Raiders staggered, regrouped and recovered just in time to pull out a narrow win in game one.

After that it was all Harrison.

The Raiders knocked off the Berries 25-23, 25-14, 25-14 Saturday night here at the Crawley Center to win their third Class 4A Sectional title in a row. It was also the third year in a row the Berries (24-8) were ousted from sectional play by the Raiders (27-5).

“We were up [in the first game] and I thought, ‘we’re gonna do it, [the girls are] gonna do it,’” Logan coach Jamee Jones said. “They had that mindset coming into the game that they are going to take this from [Harrison], and a few miscues here and there and then [Harrison is] right back in it and taking that first game. And then we just came back in the second game and just dropped our heads, thinking about the miscues, and you can’t do that in volleyball.”

The Berries were impressive out of the gate. Katie Champion was hitting wicked jump serves that resulted in two aces to help Logan jump out to a quick 4-0 lead. Kelsey Victor, a Valparaiso recruit, was walloping powerful kill attempts that were finding the floor, and Logan led 8-3 and later 13-8.

But Harrison went on one of its patented runs against Logansport to gain a 15-14 lead and never trailed the rest of the match.

The first game was tied at 22-22 before a net violation gave Harrison a 23-22 lead. It was 24-22 when Victor came up with another kill to give Logan the serve back trailing 24-23. But on the ensuing volley, Victor had to go into the Harrison fan section to save the ball and made a nice attempt, but Logan wasn’t able to get it back over the net.

Harrison jumped out to big leads in the second and third games to take control and never looked back.

“We looked incredible, and [Harrison] regrouped after that first game and brought their big girls in the middle and just tipped, tipped, tipped,” Jones said. “They were bringing the heat so we were staying back, and then we just get caught and it’s hard to recover from that.

“We’ve got to have the serves to get any kind of momentum going for us, and we just didn’t have it [Saturday night].”

If the Berries would have pulled out a win in game one, at minimum it would have forced a fourth game.

“You never know,” Jones said. “Had we gotten that first game, would [Harrison’s] heads have been hanging?”

Harrison coach Lori Jannsen was happy to come away with the win after getting a scare in the first game.

“Logansport’s a great team and they were ready to play,” she said. “We had to kind of weather that storm early on and get some composure and get back to playing our game. And I think our ball control and defense and serving eventually wore them down. And our transition ability to get some offense out of that too eventually wore them down and broke down their play a little bit.”

Jones said the future remains bright for the Berries. Champion led the North Central Conference in aces this season and also was among the league leaders in kills. Alyssa McPherson, McKenzie Mills, Jennifer Tierney and Alaina Page were also in the top 10 in various statistical categories.

“I’m hoping that the girls in the offseason start playing for some of these clubs at Purdue and Lafayette, and I think they’ll start to gain that experience,” Jones said. “We’ve got a young squad. We lose three seniors but we’re gonna come back strong next year too.”

Logansport opened the day with a thrilling 25-20, 19-25, 28-26, 26-24 win over Kokomo in a seminal match.

“[Kokomo] really had a great improvement in their passing and getting the ball up,” Jones said. “They weren’t letting anything drop and they really brought it to us, and we just had to hang tough for that one.

“The comebacks we had in the Kokomo game, I was real proud of that. The girls fought hard for that.”