Published: October 25, 2009 02:31 am      

VOLLEYBALL: Dragons repeat as Class 3A sectional champs

RAMSEY — Silver Creek weathered an early storm and cruised to a three games to none Class 3A sectional championship victory over Corydon Central Saturday night at North Harrsion.

The Dragons (25-11) defeated the Panthers for the second time in two weeks 25-22, 25-13, 25-18 to advance to Saturday’s Jasper Regional.

“I’m just so proud of the girls. They’ve played hard all year. They’ve done everything we’ve asked of them,” Dragons head coach Jeff Zimmerman said. “I thought our serve-receive was awesome. We preach defense wins championships and if we continue to dig balls up like we did tonight, we’re going to be successful.”

Early in Set 1, it was all Corydon.

Behind the serving of Charity Martin the Panthers jumped out to a 5-0 lead, prompting a Zimmerman timeout.

“I just told them they’re not going to give it to you girls. They’re going to come out and play with everything they got. They want it as bad as you guys do,” Zimmerman said.

“We definitely set the gym on fire when we started the match like that,” Panthers head coach Kim Briscoe said.

A Kristyn Maymom kill and two service points got her team on the board and within 5-3. However, Corydon responded with a 5-1 run to claim its biggest advantage of the

match at 10-4. Creek edged closed at 15-12 and two more Maymon service points, but a few points later a Jenna Keinsley ace put the Panthers up 19-14 forcing another Dragons timeout.

Creek regrouped after the break in the action as a Kim Jamros kill gave the ball to Haley Garr to serve. Garr proceeded to rip off five service points including three straight aces that gave her squad its first lead of the game, 20-19. The Dragons would not trail the rest of the game as two more Maymon kills down the stretch secured the 25-22 game one win.

“She saved us. She bailed us out,” Zimmerman said of her star freshman. “We’ve pushed her all year and she’s not a freshman anymore. It’s the post season now and she’s ready.”

Garr stayed hot in game two as she had three kills and three service points to push her team to an early 9-4 lead. Corydon never got any closer and four Maymon kills the rest of the way led to an easy 25-13 win.

“We wanted to speed up our offense to keep them off balance and run some quick ones. That was giving our outside hitters only one blocker to go against. We didn’t have many errors tonight,” Zimmerman said.

Set 3 was much of the same as two Brittany Rayburn kills and three Maymon service points, including an ace, powered Creek to an early 9-4 advantage.

The Panthers closed within 15-13, but the Dragons never trailed in Set 3 and cruised to the 25-18 victory.

Zimmerman lauded the play of Kim Jamros in the final. The senior totaled 12 kills, most coming in key spots.

“It seemed like whenever we needed a point or Corydon was on a run, we set Kim up and she came away with a kill,” said Zimmerman. “She had a heck of a day.”

Saturday’s win was the second straight sectional title for the Dragons. They also defeated Corydon in last year’s final.