Emporia State wanted to make a statement in the opening round of the South Central Regional on Friday at White Auditorium.
The Hornets did so emphatically with a 3-0 win over UT-Permian Basin. Now, it’s onto the semifinals today against West Texas A&M. The Lady Buffs, who beat Pittsburg State 3-1, are the fifth seed in the Regional, but they are ranked third in the country — two spots ahead of the Hornets.
“We’re excited to play them,” Brittney Miller said. “Dominate. Show why ‘em why we’re No. 1.”
Emporia State garnered its No. 1 seed with a 32-3 regular season and its first MIAA championship.
Miller, Arica Shepard and crew flexed their top-ranked muscle against the Falcons — particularly in the final set. Miller opened the third set with five straight kills to give the Hornets a 5-2 lead. Shepard finished with the last 11 kills of the match as the Hornets coasted to a 25-9 win.
Shepard had a match-high 21 kills, two shy of the Falcons’ team total.
“Hannah (Carter) kept taking their blockers and I figured they’d get the hint that Ting (Liu) was setting out to me, but they didn’t,” Shepard said. “I didn’t have any blockers, and Ting noticed that and it was what was open.”
Liu, the MIAA player of the year, finished with 46 assists and zero errors.
“Ting’s amazing,” Miller said. “She always finds the open person and always has good strategy.”
Emporia State’s strategy coming into Friday’s opener was to not take UT-Permian Basin lightly. The Hornets had swept the Falcons earlier this season and did not even remember playing them when they learned of their opponent on Sunday night. But the Falcons have since won a conference championship, and ESU coach Bing Xu had a meeting with his players Friday afternoon to make sure they didn’t look ahead.
“Everyone is here for a reason and we’ve got to play hard no matter what, and that’s what we did,” Miller said.
The Hornets fell behind in the first game 2-0, but once they took the lead 3-2, they never trailed again. Shepard had six kills in the first set and was even with the Falcons after a 25-14 opening-set win.
Miller, who had a negative hitting percentage after the first set, took over in the second, the only game when the Falcons were able to compete with the Hornets. After UTPB tied the game at 11, Miller had three kills during a 8-0 ESU run. The Hornets went on to win the second set, 25-18.
The Falcons, who were undersized compared to the Hornets, got overpowered in the final set, when the Hornets truly showed the 1,605 in attendance why they’re No. 1.
“Couldn’t be better,” Miller said. “We beat them in three.”
It’s going to be tough to win as easily against the Lady Buffs today, but on Friday night, the Hornets were just happy to get the first match over with.
“It was definitely a huge relief,” Carter said. “We’re just looking forward to that second round. We took it game by game and so I think we’re really excited about moving on. We don’t want the season to end, so we’re just going to keep fighting.”
And keep making statements.
West Texas A&M 3, Pittsburg State 1
Pittsburg State has been a thorn in West Texas A&M’s side the past two years.
The Gorillas beat the Lady Buffs last season and also swept them this year for one of their four losses. On Friday, the relentless Gorillas fought off what appeared to be a Lady Buffs sweep, and then fought off three match points before the Lady Buffs were finally able to win.
“They were a big wall for us,” junior Natalie Johnson said. “Last time we played we had come in really, really intimidated. We’ve been talking the last few weeks when we saw that we were lined up with them that we just had to be confident in what we were doing.”
After the Lady Buffs won the second set 31-29, they appeared confident they were finally going to finish the Gorillas. West Texas A&M rode its momentum from the comeback win in the second set to a 7-1 lead in the fourth set, but Pittsburg State rallied to win 25-22, ending the game on a 9-0 run.
“We probably fell back into a little bit of a comfort zone for a little while and then when they made their push, it was too late for us to snap out of it,” WT coach Tony Graystone said. “I’m just glad to see us come back in game four and play much better.”
The final game wasn’t much easier. West Texas A&M once again took an early lead, 7-2, only to see Pitt State rally to tie the game at 24. After a kill by Lauren Prinsen, the Lady Buffs had their first match point. Pitt State won the next two points and had a chance to force a fifth set. It took four match points, but the Lady Buffs finally won on a Johnson kill, 30-28.
“I think this was a huge team win for us, because everybody’s been saying how hard this region’s going to be and they’ve been saying how our confidence isn’t very strong,” Johnson said. “But we want to prove that we can play in this region too. We’re not just going to get walked over.”
Central Missouri 3, Washburn 0
For the first time she could remember in her 33 years as coach at Central Missouri, Peggy Martin did not use a sub and did not call a timeout on Friday.
Martin’s strategy helped the Jennies coast to a 25-18, 25-21, 25-15 win over Washburn in the first match of Friday’s South Central Regional.
“That says a lot about the players we had on the floor,” Martin said. “We had a great match, and I could have used some people but the flow was there, and you’re not going to mess with something’s that’s working. ... It was a phenomenal performance by our team.”
Last season, Washburn ended Central Missouri’s season in the second round of the regional tournament. The Jennies said they were not out for revenge; they have enough motivation with Martin coaching in her final season.
“This is a special group of girls and I think we’re playing for each other, along with coach,” UCM senior Carrie Peterson said.
The Jennies play Truman in the regional semifinals today at 4:30 p.m.
Truman 3,
Nebraska-Omaha 0
Truman has been preparing for the postseason by doing some visualization.
TSU senior Eli Medina had a vision before the regional games on Friday that Truman would win and meet No. 6 seed Central Missouri in the second round.
“I was having déja vu from 2005 when Central ended up upsetting North Alabama, we walked all over Central in the semifinal game,” Medina said. “So I was just playing out in my head. ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to happen the same.’”
First, Central Missouri took care of business upsetting Washburn, and then Medina led Truman with 10 kills to a 25-19, 25-22, 25-18 win over Nebraska-Omaha. The Jennies and Bulldogs will meet for the third time this season, and Medina is envisioning a third victory.
“We get pumped when we play Central,” she said, “and both times we’ve played them this year we’ve made them look bad.”
Comments
Post a comment
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. Our goal with this feature is to encourage thoughtful discussions about the news stories. Using the comment feature to make random attacks on people is not acceptable. Emporiagazette.com neither endorses nor guarantees the accuracy of any user contribution. Responsibility for what is posted or contributed to this site is the sole responsibility of each user. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
(Requires free registration.)