Lady Cardinals avenge earlier loss to SWIC

By DONN ADAMSON
Daily Journal Sports Editor

PARK HILLS — The Mineral Area College Lady Cardinals have only lost to three teams so far this season (12-3), and one of those losses was to the Southwest Illinois Blue Storm at the McKendree Tournament on August 29.

But that was then and this is now, and the Lady Cardinals turned  the Blue Storm into a misty breeze with a 25-16, 25-22, 25-6 win.

Mineral Area jumped into an early 16-9 lead in the first game, using a strong attacking game with Jasmine Houston and Milica Balandzic hammering down assists from Brittany Sinclair.

MAC’s defensive game was again smothering, not only in the Lady Cardinals’ blocking but also their digs in the secondary. Chelsey Politte, Kelsey Davault and libero player Chelsea Pinson hit the floor several times to keep the Blue Storm spikes in play.

  Balandzic’s jump serve and Davault’s running serve had the Blue Storm receivers guessing as both girls served several aces over the course of the match.

 Both teams settled into trading offensive attacks on their opponent’s serve, but with the seven point edge, Mineral Area was able to ride out the Storm to a 25-16 finish.

SWIC picked up their attack in game two and for much of the first half, they led all the way.

“They’re (SWIC) a much better team than that,” said MAC coach Tim Copeland of the visiting team. “ I said the night before, that this would probably be a four or five-game match. I’m surprised it wasn’t, but our girls didn’t play down a bit. We kept pushing and pushing the game to them.”

MAC trailed by a point or two until at 16-17, Davault served the Lady Cardinals into the lead with her running serve. Davault continued to serve even after a time-out by the Blue Storm to strategize a way to stop the freshman server.

The time-out was to no avail. Behind the blocking of Jessica Hill and Bailey Stanley, Davault continued to rack up the points for her team, serving the Lady Cardinals to a 21-17 lead. MAC was able to hold off a desperate Blue Storm offense for the 25-22 win.

The two-game lead took the wind out of the Storm as Balandzic served MAC out to a 6-0 start with the help of kills by Lindsey Malone and Houston. Only a kill by SWIC’s Shelby Crawford stopped Balandzic’s serve.

MAC broke serve right back, and this time it was  Pinson who set up camp on the serving line. Pinson served the Lady Cardinals to an 11-1 lead and it seemed like the Blue Storm was thinking more about the long ride home than making a comeback.

The Blue Storm’s attacks either missed the court, were discredited for net violations or were blocked by MAC’s front line. Either way, SWIC did not score a point on serve, and the game ended in nearly record time.

Davault served the score to 13-3, and only Crawford was able to give the Blue Storm’s game some credibility as she registered three kills for all of her team’s points.

At 15-4 SWIC called time, probably to discuss where they would stop to eat on the way back, because it made no difference in their game when they returned for the finish.

The Lady Cardinals continued their dominance until at 23-5, Houston tapped a ball to SWIC’s floor for game point, and after the Blue Storm broke MAC’s serve for the sixth time, Stanley entered the game again and made the final kill with a misdirection of a SWIC bad pass above the net back to the visitors’ side of the floor.

Balandzic led MAC in kills with eight and service points with 11, and she also made seven digs. Jessica Hill, Stanley and Houston all had five kills each. Sinclair made 22 assists. Davualt led in digs with 10.

The Lady Cardinals will host Florissant Valley this evening at 6:30 p.m.