GRANITE CITY – Alton battled. They fought. They refused to go quietly.
But the Redbirds’ volleyball season came to an end when Chatham Glenwood scored a 22-25, 25-20, 30-28 win in a first-round match of the IHSA Class 4A Granite City Regional at Granite City’s Memorial Gym Monday night, sending the Titans to a semifinal match against O’Fallon Tuesday.
In the other match, the host Granite City Warriors were eliminated in a 25-12, 25-13 loss to Quincy, putting the Blue Devils into Tuesday’s other semifinal against Edwardsville. Both semifinal matches, beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, will be played at O’Fallon’s Panther Dome because of a scheduling conflict with Memorial Gym; the final is still set for 6 p.m. Thursday at Memorial Gym.
“It (stinks) in that’s the way that it ended, but the girls never gave up,” said Redbird coach Stacey Ferguson. “They kept working, they kept fighting, they kept working together. I can’t ask anything else from them.”
Ferguson felt the matched turned on a small loss of momentum in Game 2. “I think we lost a little momentum in the second game, we battled back but we couldn’t quite close in,” Ferguson said. “We didn’t start off the third game quite the way we needed to, and once the intensity built, it was a matter of where the ball breaks for whatever team.”
The deciding game saw the Titans get to small leads early on, but the Redbirds kept taking everything Chatham could throw at them and managed to stay close, drawing even with them and even taking small leads themselves. Both teams found themselves in several match-point situations, only to see the other team score to keep the game going before Chatham finally broke through and scored the points to secure the match.
Alton will be losing Jada Green and Kalin Haug from this year’s team, and Ferguson lauded their contributions to the Redbird program. “They’re definitely going to be missed,” Ferguson said. “They worked really hard tonight to try to get through this match; it’s a bummer for them, I know they’re upset about it, but the put it all out there.”
In the nightcap, Quincy took control of the match early and never let the Warriors make a run at them. “They’re a very good team,” GCHS coach Ginger Harrison said, “very refined, extremely good hitters.”
Granite City will be losing four seniors – Ciara Tieman, Haley Jones, Andrea Valencia and Ariel Rayl – and Harrison said they won’t be easy to replace.
“Some of my seniors I’ve coached since they were in sixth grade,” Harrison said, “and not only do I have a connection with them on the court but off the court as well; I feel like some of them are like daughters, so when you coached kids that long and you have them in class, it carries over. I care for each and every one of them like they were my own.”
Alton was eliminated with a mark of 21-13-1 on the year.
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