EDDYVILLE — When Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont and Pella Christian meet in regional tourney play, it is always and intense match and Tuesday night’s match was super intense.

The Eagles surprised the Rockets with wins of 25-19 and 25-23 in the first two games.

In game three, the Rockets finally got it together and rolled to a 25-12 win. Game four turned into a donnybrook as the two teams went at it toe-to-toe and point for point before the Rockets pulled out a 25-23 win.

In the deciding game five, the Rockets broke away for a 12-12 deadlock to score the final three points and take the 15-12 win and the match.

The win will send the Rockets into Friday night’s regional semifinal match with the Pekin Panthers, who swept Van Buren in three games. The match will be played in Eddyville.

The two teams traded blows all night and in the deciding fifth game, it was still a back-and-forth affair.

 Late in the match, the score was tied at 12-12 and Tasha Alexander put down a kill to give the Rockets a 13-12 lead. That sent Alexander to the service line and she rifled the ball across the net. The serve was returned and pass to setter Paige Shafer. The set to Karlie Taylor was perfect and Taylor got a full swing at the ball. She sent a throbbing kill to the floor that registered about 7.9 on the Richter scale and the Rockets led 14-12. Game point!

Alexander used her patented jump serve and nailed it. It was dug out, but the hit went out of bounds and the Rockets side of the floor erupted in a major celebration.

Alexander felt relieved to finally get a win against the Eagles.

“My sister’s teams always got eliminated by them, so it was time to get a win,” Alexander said. “This is great and I’m so excited to beat them. They played us very tough and had us down. We may have taken them lightly, but in game three we realized that we had to work together to get it done.”

Taylor is one of the two freshmen that start for the Rockets and she admitted to feeling some pressure as her sisters as well had been on those Rocket teams that were sent home by the Eagles.

“I was feeling some pressure, especially in the end of the last game,” Taylor said. “I got the set I needed and I gave it all I had. It was our time.”

The Eagles took it to the Rockets in the 25-19 first game win. A long service run by Lauren Jungling and the hitting of Madison Fopma, Jora Vander Hart and Rebecca Gritters fueled the Pella Christian charge.

In game two, the Rockets surged into an 11-6 lead behind the hitting of Alexander, Sadie Baugher, McKinley Moore and Taylor. But then the Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont defense began to struggle with communication problems and hitting errors. With Tessa Howerzyl serving the Eagles ripped off a nine-point run to take a lead they would not give up. Meredith Fopma led the charge with three kills and a block. The Rockets battled back to tie the score at 22-22 on a kill by Moore, but then a hitting error, a block by Fopma and a reception error slammed the door on a 25-23 Eagle win.

Game three found the Rockets with their backs firmly pinned against the wall and a sense of urgency was evident. Led by the serving and hitting of Alexander, the Rockets raced away to a 10-5 lead. Then a five-point service run by Taylor sent the Rockets on their way to a 25-12 win.

The cauldron came to a boil in game four as the tension became so thick you could slice it like bologna.

Both teams played at a fever pitch and most of the points came on side outs. Neither team was able to build a lead of more than one point until the Eagles used kills by Vander Hart and Jungling along with an ace serve by Vander Hart gave Pella Christian a 22-20 lead. After the teams traded points, a net serve gave the Rockets the ball. Two hitting errors by the Eagles gave the Rockets a 24-23 lead and Alexander smashed down a kill for the final point.

The table was set for the fifth and deciding game and what a game it was.

After the match, Pella Christian coac, Cindy Nikkel reflected on the improvement her team has made.

“We have improved a lot over the season and it showed tonight,” Nikkel said. “This was a great match and the tension had an effect on both teams. It was not a perfectly played match, but the tension had a lot to do with that. Anyway you look at it, this was a game the crowd had to enjoy.”

The Eagles were led by Gritters with 14 kills while Vander Hart had 13 kills and 17 digs and Fopma had 11 kills and five blocks. Alexander led the Rockets with 23 kills, 12 digs and two blocks and Taylor added 15 kills and two blocks.

Rockets coach Gladys Genskow pointed out a change in focus after game two.

“In the first two games we were just out of sync,” Genskow said. “We were trying to do too much individually and not finding much success. In game three, we started pulling together more with a renewed focus. In games four and five we played with a lot of heart and a refuse to quit attitude.”

 

Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont 19-23-25-25-15, Pella Christian 25-25-12-23-12

Pella Christian statistics

Serving — Briana Warden 3 aces, Tessa Howerzyl 2 aces.

Kills — Rebecca Gritters 14, Jora Vander Hart 13, Madison Fopma 11, Hannah Beltman 6.

Digs —Warden 18, Howerzyl 17, Vander Hart 17, Lauren Jungling 11, Daphni Yarkosky 9.

Blocks — Fopma 5, Logan DeGraaf 2.

Assists — Jungling 46.

Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont statistics

Serving — Tasha Alexander 18-for-20, 2 aces; Harlie Boyer 19-for-21, 2 aces; Karlie Taylor 17-for-17, 1 ace; Paige Shafer 14-for-15, 2 aces; Amanda Ratliff 10-for-11; Shunyl Busch 14-for-19, 1 ace.

Kills — Alexander 53-for-58, 23 kills; Taylor 44-for-51, 15 kills; Busch 18-for-21, 7 kills; McKinley Moore 14-for-16, 6 kills; Sadie Baugher 9-for-9, 2 kills.

Digs — Ratliff 15, Alexander 12, Boyer 8, Taylor 4, Busch 3.

Blocks — Moore 7, Taylor 2, Alexander 2.

Assists — Shafer 49.