HURON – In a matchup between two teams that met for a state championship in 2021, Warner came up with the right answers to sweep Colman-Egan Tuesday night.
The Monarchs produced a 25-21, 25-20, 25-23 Class B SoDak 16 victory at the Huron Arena that gave coach Kari Jung her 800th career win.
“I was hoping the kids could get the feeling to get back to state,” Jung said. “I didn’t care about the 800.”
The Monarchs knew the task that awaited them when they realized who their opponent would be.
“I knew we had a really tough draw,” Jung said. “When I saw Colman-Egan, I’m like oh man, we’re going to have to work our tails off, because their outside hitting is so solid.”
It was the Monarchs that set the tone from the service line in the opening set. Holding a 13-11 advantage, Miah Leidholt served up multiple aces that left Warner with a commanding 22-11 bulge.
“I feel like I brought that energy,” said Leidholt, who finished with six aces total.
She said that serving has been a point of emphasis in practice.
“It’s really stressful when it’s a tight game, but we practice this in practice,” Leidholt said. “We did a whole bunch of serving.”
That serving played right into Warner’s strategy for the match.
“We talked about that,” Leidholt said. “We were like our key was we need to get them out of system.”
Colman-Egan got their hitters going in the next two sets and the Hawks owned leads in both sets.
“I think when they got ahead of us early in set two and three, our kids kept their heads together and fought back, but Miah’s serving was unbelievable,” Jung said. “Even our other servers, I think we only missed one tonight, and they were pretty aggressive. That was key for us to keep them out of system.”
The Monarchs trailed by as much as five points in the third set, but they never panicked and eventually closed the set on a 7-2 surge to complete the sweep. MaKenna Leidholt, who led the Monarchs with 17 kills, said the players just needed to stay calm.
“More just like keeping our cool, bringing the energy and when we lost that point and we went down, I’m like guys ‘we’re fine, we’re fine.’ We just have to get that next one back,” Leidholt said. “We brought that energy, just kill after kill.”
Of course Warner’s defense once again played a key role in the victory. The Hawks were forced to find holes that sometimes evaporated quickly.
“They cover the floor so well. We tried finding their holes, but they would get a hand on it and get it up and playable, which just makes it really hard,” said Colman-Egan coach Abigail Hemmer. “So you try to emphasize to keep swinging and staying aggressive that way, because if we get into a tipping game it just never ends well, because they just cover it way too well.”
Combine that with the fact that Warner made less overall errors, it was difficult for the Hawks to maintain the leads with they had them.
“We said we would have to make less errors than they do, and we made way too many service errors,” Hemmer said. “We really, really struggled serve receive, and again we knew coming in they were going to be strong servers and it was going to be a battle, and we just got stuck in way too many rotations and just couldn’t find a way out when we needed it.”
The win was satisfying for Warner senior Reagan Wood, who will get to finish off her prep career by playing in another state tournament.
“I’m so happy and proud of how our team executed this game,” Wood said.
Warner’s team features 11 underclassmen on the roster.
“These younger girls have stepped up so much this year and I’m so proud of them,” Wood said.
The Monarchs head into next week’s state tourney as the third seed and will face Harding County in the opening round.
“We’re going to get down to it. In practice we’re going to work every day,” MaKenna Leidholt said. “We’re going to be grateful that were there still practicing, and we’re going to bring it to the state tournament.”
Jung took a moment to reflect on her milestone coaching accomplishment.
“We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve got some consistent coaching and kids really love the game in Warner,” Jung said. “And you’ve got to have the athletes. I’ve thankful that I’ve been given a lot of great athletes over the years.”
Serving: Colman-Egan (Brynlee Landis 2 aces, Finley Luze 2 aces, Caelee LeBrun 1 ace, Kinley Geigle 1 ace); Warner 74-74 11 aces (Miah Leidholt 25-25 6 aces, Jaycee Jung 11-11 2 aces, Courtney Leidholt 8-8 2 aces, Reagan Wood 13-13 1 ace).
Hitting: Colman-Egan (LeBrun 15 kills, Luze 13 kills); Warner 94-110 39 kills (McKenna Leidholt 32-36 17 kills, Jung 17-21 10 kills, Miah Leidholt 9-9 3 kills).
Setting: Colman-Egan (Luze 16 assists); Warner 110-114 39 assists (Wood 33-35 18 assists, Tatum Hanson 42-43 12 assists).
Digs: Colman-Egan (Landis 14, Luze 10, LeBrun 9, Geigle 8); Warner (Jung 17, Wood 11, Hanson 10).
Blocks: Colman-Egan (Michoen Williamson 2 solo 2 assists, Luze 1 solo 1 assist); Warner 1 solo 6 assists (MaKenna Leidholt 1 solo 2 assists, Olivia Marcuson 2 assists).
Records: Colman-Egan 22-7; Warner 31-6.
