Scott City spikers sweep Leopold

LEOPOLD, Mo. -- Two years ago the Scott City volleyball team visited Leopold's small and notoriously loud gymnasium for the first time under coach Haley Jennings, so this time around the team came prepared.

"It's so much smaller than everywhere else I've ever played," Scott City's Brooke Simpson said. "It echoes a lot, so it's really hard to hear each other out on the court.

"That was probably our biggest problem. We actually had a practice today before we started and I think that helped a lot because we knew we were going to come in here and it would be really difficult to keep the communication going out on the floor."

This past weekend Scott City traveled to the Arkansas State Tournament only to be ousted in the first round of bracket play because of serve-receive problems, so this time around the team came prepared.

"That was probably our weakest point all weekend," Simpson said, "so we really wanted to focus on that and make sure we executed that today."

Scott City, left, visits Leopold for a match Monday, September 28, 2009. (Kit Doyle)

As the Scott City coaches watched Leopold's hitters during the warm-up Monday night they noticed a trend. And when the game started, they were prepared.

The preparation paid off for the Rams, who turned a match between teams with lofty state rankings into a routine 25-10, 25-19 victory.

"We watched the hitters warming up and saw that they hit line a lot," Jennings said. "We knew that we had to cut out that line shot, so we focused on our blocks a lot and pulled over to the right and blocked line."

Leopold, ranked second in the most recent Class 1 poll, led 6-5 in game one, but Scott City reeled off 14 of the next 15 points.

Most of the run came with only two Leopold hitters in the front row alongside setter Lauren Seiler. With only two options to choose from and erratic passing for Seiler to work with, hitters Kirsten Thele and Mallory James were too often left trying to hit around two Scott City blockers.

Leopold's Kirsten Thele watches her hit head down the line Monday, September 28, 2009, against Scott City at Leopold. (Kit Doyle)

"It was good for our hitters because, look, you're going to get blocked," Leopold coach Sandy Davis said. "We've got to work on our covering and things like that. Overall, it showed what we really need to work on, but I'm not too disappointed in the game."

Davis pointed to her team's trouble receiving serve and admitted that the powerful, and big, Scott City front line was hard for it to deal with.

"I think we got a little intimidated at times, but they overcame some of that, too, so I saw a lot of good points," Davis said.

The Rams, currently No. 2 in Class 2, were forced to call a timeout early in game two and trailed 8-3 at one point before going on an 8-1 run to give themselves a lead they never relinquished.

Simpson led Scott City with 11 kills and eight digs. Mikah Simpson had eight kills and eight digs and Katie Diebold added 10 assists.

Thele led Leopold with seven kills while James finished with five. Abby Landewee added six kills and five blocks and Lauren finished with 16 assists.

Although both team's featured plenty of offensive power, Scott City's blocking and defense allowed them to attack more often than Leopold.

"We knew we had to hit at them because if we didn't hit at them, it would just be them hitting at us," Scott City's Katie Hogan said.

That was part of the plan as well.

"We knew coming into it that they had a few big hitters," Simpson said, "so we really wanted to stay strong up there at the net and get a lot of good blocks to make it easier for our defense. And then on offense we just tried to kill it every single time."

And then the crowd was quiet for a moment.

"That's the best," Hogan said.