The Saline Reporter
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CONFERENCE CHAMPS: Hornets sweep Pioneer for SEC title
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: March 1, 2007
There was good news and bad news for the Saline Hornets at the Southeastern Conference Red division "quad" meet last Thursday.
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The bad news is the Hornets' day began with a four-game loss to Adrian and ended with a four-game loss to Bedford, both teams the Hornets defeated in SEC play during the regular season.
The good news was in the final SEC Red standings, it didn't matter. A 25-19, 25-19, 25-22 sweep of Ann Arbor Pioneer in the Hornets' second match of the day gave Saline seven match wins on the season and clinched the SEC Red championship.
"I'm kind of torn," head coach Courtney Huffman said afterward. "I'm happy we won the conference. But I'd feel better if we'd beaten Bedford. I would say we played our 'B-plus' game today."
One major positive for the Hornets was the return of senior Kelsi Bitter from an injury that had kept her out for the last few weeks.
"It feels good. I'm still a little rusty, but I'm getting back there," she said. "As a team, I think we could have played better at times. But it helps that we came in first (in the SEC) and our defense was really good."
The Hornets entered the quad with a 6-1 record, two games better than 4-3 Bedford and Pioneer, meaning one win and one loss by each of those teams would wrap up the SEC title.
The win didn't come against Adrian. The host Maples evened their season series with Saline at 2-2 (the teams split two tournament meetings while Saline won the regular-season match-up) by taking the second, third and fourth games. The Hornets won Game 1 25-23 — the fourth straight game played between the two to be decided by the minimum two points — before falling 22-25, 22-25, 19-25.
If the Hornets were discouraged at all by their loss to Adrian, it didn't show against Pioneer. The Hornets took the first and second games by identical 25-19 scores and then answered a 13-3 run by Pioneer in Game 3 with an 8-1 run of their own, turning a 19-16 deficit into a 24-19 lead. A Kara Zawisza kill finished the game and match — and conference race, thanks to Bedford's loss to Adrian — at 25-22.
Saline had defeated Bedford in three different meetings earlier in the season, but the fired-up Mules were able to turn the tables in a hard-fought match Thursday.
Back-to-back kills from Bitter and Zawisza gave Saline a 22-21 lead in Game 1, but Bedford took the next three points and won 25-23. Game 2 was similar as consecutive blocks from Nicole Whiddon lifted Saline into a 22-22 tie, only for the Mules to win the last three points of the game.
The Saline offense finally started to roll in Game 3, as Whiddon, Zawisza, Bitter and Kacy Hartman each collected multiple kills en route to building a 13-5 Hornet edge. The Mules never got closer than seven the rest of the way and Saline extended the match 25-16.
The Mules dug in again in Game 4, using a series of excellent digs to frustrate the Hornet attack and push what had been an 8-8 tie into an 18-12 lead. A kill by Susan McDonough got Saline within 23-18, but Bedford closed out the match by taking the next two points.
Zawisza led the team in kills on the day with 32, while her 39 digs were second only to Sarah Cowen's 42. Whiddon notched 22 kills and six solo blocks. Jen Galbreath and Katie Stone had 51 and 52 assists, respectively, while Kacy Hartman collected a team-high six aces. Bitter had 18 kills in her return.
Unaware that they had already clinched the SEC title, the Hornets ended the day celebrating despite the loss after the final standings were announced.
Besides the championship, the other good news for Huffman was that she felt her players had been able to learn a lesson about their level of play before heading to districts March 3.
The Hornets will take on Tecumseh in a first-round match, with the winner to face Dexter in one semifinal. The Ann Arbor schools and hosts Adrian fill out the bracket.
"I'm just glad we got this out of our system," she said. "We have to play harder and we have to be more aggressive."
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