EG Netters Drop 3 Straight

FALL TO 2-4 IN ROLLING HILLS CONFERENCE

A quick three-game sweep of CAM (Anita) in a match at Rippey put East Greene at 2-1 and into a tie with Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira for third place in the Rolling Hills Conference, but a three-match losing streak has since dropped the Hawkettes into a tie with Glidden-Ralston in seventh.

East Greene quickly got the measure of the CAM Cougars on Sept. 7, taking the best-of-five-games match 26-24, 25-15, 25-21.

The Hawkettes faced a much more formidable foe in their next match on Sept. 14 as they hosted Adair-Casey, the sixth-ranked team in the state. EG put up a good fight, but fell in three games, 25-19, 26-24, 25-22.

The Hawkettes and AC had tangled earlier in the season in the semifinal round of the Coon Rapids-Bayard Tourney, with the Bombers getting the upper hand in a tight best-of-three match, 25-23, 25-21.

The Sept. 14 conference match against the Bombers put the Hawkettes into the meat of their season schedule as state-ranked Iowa Christian was on the docket for the following Tuesday, Sept. 21, in Rippey with a match at Ankeny Christian Academy in Ankeny on Thursday, Sept. 16.

ACA and East Greene went right down to the wire with a fifth game showdown in Ankeny and the Eagles prevailed: 16-25, 21-25, 26-24, 25-12, 15-8. East Greene almost had a three-game sweep in hand, but ACA rallied in a third game that went into extra digits, and then went on to even things up in game four. The Eagles made quick work of the Hawkettes in that game, winning by a big 13 points. It was more of same in the match-deciding fifth game, with ACA winning by 7.

The loss to ACA was a bit of an upset as EG had rolled over the Eagles in the CRB Tournament 21-8, 21-11. ACA went 0-3 in pool play, also losing to Paton-Churdan and CRB, while EG had advanced to the championship round with a 2-1 pool mark.

While ACA was upending EG to put both teams at 2-3 in the conference, there was a bit of a surprise at the top of the standings as Iowa Christian Academy rolled over Adair-Casey in three straight in a showdown of the league’s leaders. ICA was firmly in command of the match with the Bombers not making much of a threat until third game: 25-20, 25-11, 27-25.

The win left ICA atop the league standings at 5-0 while AC fell to 4-1. In the Class 1A state volleyball rankings released that day, Adair-Casey was ranked 6th and Iowa Christian was 12th.

ICA solidified its place at the top of Rolling Hills on the following Tuesday, Sept. 21, in Rippey taking down the Hawkettes in three games: 25-17, 25-11, 25-18.

The loss dropped EG to 2-4 in the conference and 5-6 overall, the first time all season the Hawkettes have been below .500.

With just three conference matches remaining, the Hawkettes will be fighting to claw back to a finish in the upper division of the Rolling Hills. If they beat Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira (3-3, 4-12) tonight in Elk Horn, Glidden-Ralston (2-4, 5-12) at home on Oct. 5, and Walnut (1-5, 3-14) in their final regular season match on Oct. 12, the Hawkettes will finish with a 5-4 conference mark.

EG also has a home match with former West Central Conference foe Guthrie Center on Thursday of this week and a road match at Madrid, also a West Central member, next Thursday, Oct. 7, to round out its non-conference slate along with a tournament in Walnut on Saturday, Oct. 9.

Rolling Hills Conference
(Standings and records through Monday, 9-27)
Iowa Christian Academy 6-0, 9-3
Adair-Casey 5-1, 10-1
CAM (Anita) 4-2, 4-4
Ankeny Christian Academy 3-3, 4-7
Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira 3-3, 4-12
Orient-Macksburg 3-3, 4-3
East Greene 2-4, 5-6
Glidden-Ralston 2-4, 5-12
Paton-Churdan 1-5, 2-14
Walnut 1-5, 3-14

EYE ON GJ SAYS: EG will be racking up the miles from here on until the end of the season. Along with tonight’s journey to Elk Horn and the trip to Walnut on Oct. 12, the team will also travel to Walnut on Saturday, Oct. 9, to participate in the Walnut Tournament. Then it’s back to Elk Horn again on Thursday, Oct. 14, for the Rolling Hills Conference Tournament, at the Elk Horn-Kimballton gym which is the home court for EHKE.

CONFERENCE TOURNEY: The next three matches are critical to the Hawkettes as the final standings determine the seedings for the conference tournament on Oct. 14. The teams are seeded 1 through 10 and the bottom four seeds play a preliminary round with 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9. Last year, Paton-Churdan was seeded seventh and got by tenth-seeded Walnut in the opening round. The Rockettes then upset No. 2 seed Iowa Christian, the regular season runner-up, to advance to the semifinal round. The four losers in the quarterfinal round drop down into a consolation round, which ICA won by beating Ankeny Christian in the fifth-place match. CAM eliminated PC in the semifinals and went on to face Exira in the championship match, which Exira won. The Rockettes were beaten by Orient-Macksburg in the consolation championship game, giving OM third place with the Rockettes finishing in fourth.

SEASON COMPONENTS: The nice thing about the playing in the Rolling Hills is that the volleyball season is broken up into four components: the regular conference season, the non-conference and invitational tournaments, the conference tournament where everyone gets a fresh start against the same opponents but the match-ups are based how the teams played during the regular season, and then the post-season playoff in the regional tournament, which determines the team that will move on to the state championship in Cedar Rapids.

At this juncture, Iowa Christian and Adair-Casey look very solid. Along with Grandview Park Baptist of Des Moines, they are the only area teams ranked in Class 1A, and all three are currently in the Top 10. Grandview Park (15-7), a qualifier in last year’s state tourney, is fourth, while Adair-Casey is ninth and Iowa Christian is tenth.

Only two central or west central Iowa area teams are ranked in Class 2A—Bondurant-Farrar, which competes against Jefferson-Scranton and Ogden in the Heart of Iowa Conference, and East Sac County, a member of the Twin Lakes along with Southeast Webster-Grand, Prairie Valley and South Central Calhoun (the alignment of Southern Cal of Lake City and Rockwell City-Lytton).

MOMENTUM: Volleyball is clearly a game of momentum, as evidenced by EG’s match against Ankeny Christian. Here the Hawkettes had already beaten the Eagles by scores of very wide margins for volleyball games--10 and 13 points--and were up two games to none in a best-of-five match in Ankeny, winning by nine points and then by four points. The Eagles had whittled away any advantage the Hawkettes had and took a must-win game three that went into extra digits (26-24). That comeback clearly gave ACA the momentum and they carried forward in a complete reversal—and then some—in the final two games winning by wide margins of 13 and 7.

A big momentum shift had hurt the Hawkettes earlier in the season. Coach Carly Tiffany told the Jefferson Herald that in EG’s opening conference match against Orient-Macksburg, the Hawkettes had taken the first game by a comfortable seven-point advantage, 25-18, but then a leaky roof stopped play. When play resumed after the delay, the Hawkettes had lost their momentum and OM took advantage, taking the next three games and the match, 25-17, 26-24, 25-18.

REGIONAL PAIRINGS: Regional pairings will be released soon and it will be interesting to see how teams are placed geographically. Last year, East Greene and Madrid were on the far eastern border of a region that stretched all the way to the Missouri River, encompassing Southern Cal on the northern edge of the region and teams such as Coon Rapids-Bayard, Ar-We-Va, Exira and St. Albert’s (Council Bluffs). Southern Cal, a highly ranked team, was placed on one side of the region and St. Albert’s, Exira and CRB, all strong teams but none ranked or ranked as highly as Southern Cal, were placed on the opposite side of the region. Southern Cal prevailed and advanced from the region to the state tournament.

Southeast Webster-Grand (Burnside), the closest 1A team to the north of East Greene, along with Rockwell City-Lytton which is (or was, last year) the school just beyond Southern Cal, were in a region that stretched from a line across the middle of Calhoun (Rockwell City) and Webster (Burnside) counties all the way north to the state border with Minnesota.

The next region had a line from Colo-Nesco and over and down to Ankeny and then stretched south and east encompassing Grandview Park Baptist, Iowa Christian and Des Moines Christian, along with schools south of Des Moines such as Martensdale-St. Mary’s and teams further south and east like Moravia, Melcher-Dallas, Twin Cedars (Bussey) and Lynville-Sully.

Grandview Park Baptist was on one side of the region with Iowa Christian, Des Moines Christian and a very strong Twin Cedars team on the other. Twin Cedars beat DMC in the semifinal round, and then fell to Grandview in the region final.

It will be interesting to see how the regions take shape this year. Southern Cal and Rockwell City-Lytton are out of the picture, as South Central Calhoun is a 2A team, so that takes two 1A schools out of two different regions from 2009—So Cal in Region 3 and RCL in Region 2.

Last year, four of the 10 West Central Conference schools (EG, DMC, CRB and Madrid) were in Class 1A with the other six in 2A. Since EG moved from the West Central to the Rolling Hills, the league has just nine members this year (Ogden will leave the Heart of Iowa after this year and begin play next year in the West Central). And again this year, four of the members are in 1A. This year its Guthrie Center and Earlham dropping down from 2A to join Madrid and CRB in 1A while Woodward-Granger, Van Meter, West Central Valley and Panorama remain in 2A and DMC moves from 1A to 2A.

So there will be the DMC void to fill in that region but the next nearest team to the north and west is Madrid and due west is Earlham, so most likely one—or both—of those two teams could slide into that region (which was Region 5 last year). And last year, Guthrie Center was in 2A so they also come into the mix for Region 5 scheduling in 1A.

It will be very interesting in Region 2. Not only is RCL gone, but so is Schaller-Crestland which is in a sports-sharing arrangement with Galva-Holstein as Ridge View, a 2A school.

So some area teams might need to slide north and since Southern Cal is out of the picture then the north edge of the region would drop further down to include Paton-Churdan and also Glidden-Ralston or East Greene, as both are on an even line (Highway 30). In softball last season, in which PC shares with Jefferson-Scranton which is classified either as 2A or 3A (depending on the sport), the schedulers had to leap over PC, geographically speaking, so EG, GR, SWG and Ar-We-VA were classified in a 15-team region (regions are usually between 16 and 18 teams) that included Newell-Fonda, Alta, and Aurelia and teams in far northern Iowa like Ruthven-Ayrshire, West Bend-Mallard, Graettinger-Terrill, and Harris-Lake Park.

Volleyball does have a higher participation level however, as seven of the eight softball regions were comprised of just 15 teams, while in volleyball last year there were four regions with 17 teams and four regions with 18 teams. That resulted in a 17-team regional with a first-round game matching up two teams with the winner slotted into the top or bottom of 16-team bracket and two first-round games on both top and bottom sides of the brackets in regions with 18 teams.

With Adair-Casey well beyond Des Moines, and two ranked teams in the immediate Des Moines area, look for AC to be positioned again in Region 3, where they were last year, while both Iowa Christian and Grandview Park Baptist placed in Region 5 but on opposite sides of the bracket.

GPB could be scheduled to play teams to the east and south while Iowa Christian, being in West Des Moines, would be aligned with teams to the south, but the championship game would most likely be in the southern metro Des Moines area, perhaps Norwalk or Indianola, as last year it was in Truro, which is pretty far south but Twin Cedars reached the final opposite GPB which played its first two rounds at Martensdale-St. Mary’s, a team that was highly ranked last season. GPB knocked out MSt.M in the first round on its march to the regional championship and state tournament.

So far, teams with solid records in the area include both CRB and Guthrie Center from the West Central and Ar-We-Va in the Western Valley South—all three would most likely contend with Adair-Casey in Region 3.