Scott City volleyball team defends SEMO Spike tourney crown

The Scott City volleyball team hoped -- and thought -- that the hardest work was behind it by the time it reached the championship match of the 48-team SEMO Spike tournament.

The Rams already had defeated Advance, Perryville and Notre Dame -- three teams ranked among the top five in Southeast Missouri in the latest semoball.com poll -- in bracket play before facing perennial Class 1 contender Eminence.

Scott City dropped the first game before rebounding to earn a 16-25, 30-28, 25-13 victory and claim the tournament title for a second consecutive season.

"It feels awesome that we played with the best teams here and we beat them," Scott City senior Katie Hogan said. "I think we kind of underestimated them [Eminence] and just thought if we try hard at times, we'll get the win. Then we figured out that they're really scrappy on defense. Their defense is awesome, so we had to swing hard at them in order for them to give us easier balls."

The Eminence defense had little trouble handling Scott City's attack in Game 1. Tips, hard spikes, roll shots, serves and everything else Scott City players sent the Redwings' way were much more often than not softly passed into the hands of their setter.

Scott City's Mikah Simpson hits the ball over Eminence's Abby Dyer as Katie Hogan looks on during the first game of the SEMO Spike tournament title match Saturday at the Show Me Center. (Fred Lynch)

Scott City coach Erin Hoffman said Eminence's serve receive was the best she's seen, and Hogan's first words when she was asked about its defense were an exasperated "Oh God."

The Scott City players, by all accounts, were sluggish in their Game 1 defeat after a day of tough matches and a three-game victory over rival Notre Dame in the semifinals.

"It was an exhaustion, I think, but when you give in to that exhaustion, that's when you start to have your trouble," Hoffman said about her team's start. "I think we gave into it. I don't think we planned on taking Eminence seriously, and they're very good. I know they're very good. Being at Bell City for eight years, they've been up at the state tournament every time we were up there.

"They were smaller, and I just think that they didn't go into the game 100 percent. Then halfway through the second game they're like, 'Hmm, we may have to start to play.'"

Scott City saved four championship points in the second game.

Scott City's Whitney Froman hits the ball as Eminence's Kelsey Williams defends during the first game of the title match in the SEMO Spike volleyball tournament Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011 at the Show Me Center. (Fred Lynch)

The first three were saved by kills, which were made possible thanks to an improvement in its own defensive performance.

"It doesn't matter what kind of hitters you've got," Hoffman said. "We've got some big and some great hitters. It doesn't matter if you can't pass the ball, so we put a lot of focus on the passing and the defense. I think that paid off a lot today."

Hogan's kill on the Rams' second game point sealed the Game 2 victory.

"I think it takes a lot of mental strength on their part, too," Hoffman said. "I bring it to their attention a lot. It doesn't matter how physically good you are if you are mentally weak. It's not going to work, so we work on that a lot, too."

Hogan dominated play from the outset in Game 3 by smashing an overpass to the floor on the first point. She helped on two stuff blocks and killed three more balls to help the Rams race out to a 9-2 lead.

"I knew that they were single blocking me in the middle," Hogan said. "My libero Megan [McNeely] told me that that corner over there was open to hit, so when I saw that blocker come up to the left, I just hit it really hard down to the right."

Hogan finished with eight kills in Game 3 and 25 in the match. Mikah Simpson finished with nine kills, and Whitney Froman added seven.

"I don't understand why we didn't do that the whole time," Hoffman said about feeding a hard-swinging Hogan. "After they did it that first time in the third game, I was like, 'See how easy that is?' and they just kept doing it and doing it and doing it."

Hoffman admitted she was a little uneasy when she saw the path her team would have to take to the title.

"But then I thought it's just going to make us better," she said. "This is the time of the year when you're just starting to jell together. You're trying to figure out what your best lineups and all that are and your best connections. You want to play hard teams because that's what's going to make you better."