Eagles outlast Prairie Stars in 5

Prairie Stars stumble in fourth and fifth games

November 19, 2008
By Robert Jackson
Sports Editor   

If the scream the Williams Baptist Eagles captain, Laura Jardeen, let out after winning the coin toss for fifth game didn’t sink the stomachs of Prairie Stars fans, the realization that the team was now playing in a fifth game, after building an early 2-0 lead, may have.

After building an early two game lead, the Prairie Stars volleyball team seemed set to advance to play the winner between Hannibal-LaGrange and Missouri Baptist.  But after the second game, the Eagles proceeded to win the next three games, using their 25-17 blowout in game four to overwhelm the Prairie Stars in the fifth game 15-11.

 “Coming into this we knew UIS was a tough team,” Eagles Head Coach Eric Newell said. “They’d beaten us twice before—we had our backs against the wall. I just told the girls, ‘Let’s battle, let’s leave it all out on the court.’”
It was the second time this season the Prairie Stars suffered a loss after building a 2-0 game lead.

For the first game service errors cost the Eagles with Stephanie Heart registering three.

“I sat her down and told her, ‘You’re going to be alright. You can let it eat at you mentally or deal with it.’ She dealt with it.” Newell said. For the subsequent games, Heart buried a hard jump serve deep on the Prairie Stars side.

Senior setter Tori McColez said after the game that Prairie Stars Head Coach Joe Fisher singled out the service of the Eagles as a strong point of their team.

“They just dominated us with their hard serves tonight,” McColez said.
For the second game the Prairie Stars were down until finally taking a lead at 16-15. But after bad passing stalled the Prairie Stars attack, the Eagles regained the lead at 22-21.

The Prairie Stars closed game two after Kelly Wajda scooped a spike from her left-back position to set up a Kimberley Bartosiak game-winning kill.
The third game again put Wajda in position to save the game, but the junior bounced an errant dig off her forearms and out of bounds to give the Eagles their first game victory at 25-22.

For the fourth game the Eagles blitzed the Prairie Stars with a series of aggressive serves that prompted two time-outs by Fisher within the first 21 points of the game.

“We were stuck in a couple of bad rotations where we had trouble passing the ball,” Fisher said. “When you have to run your offense out of system it makes things very difficult.”

After the second time out the Prairie Stars responded by going on an 11-5 scoring run, which caused Newell to call time-out at 21-16. The Eagles wrapped up the fourth game after the time out, stymieing a late UIS charge by eventually winning 25-17.

The Eagles started the fifth game with an important solo block by Heart on Prairie Stars middle hitter Danielle Simler, making the game 4-2. The Eagles would collect two more points off of UIS errors before Fisher called time-out at 6-2.

After the time out the Prairie Stars and Eagles traded points until Fisher used his final time out at 11-5. The time out could not inspire any comeback for the Prairie Stars, though, as the team fell 15-11 in the final game of their season.

“We played really hard,” McColez said. “We wanted it. I am just so proud of the girls.”