EDINBURGH — Perennial volleyball power Hauser did it again. For the tenth consecutive year, the Jets held up a Class A sectional championship trophy after completing a sweep of Morristown in the championship match Saturday night 25-14, 25-22, 25-19.
Hauser has not lost a sectional match since 2009. And the Jets made sure the beat continued with a dominant victory over the Yellow Jackets in which they never trailed by more than two points.
Hauser coach Jeff Case contributes his team’s success to several things.
“These kids come from an awesome community. We believe in hard work, faith, and doing the right thing. Those are the keys to our success,” he said.
The Jets (26-7) jumped out quickly in the first set, with Shelby Fugate serving them to a 5-1 lead. After Morristown (17-17) cut the lead to 7-6, Hauser outscored the Yellow Jackets 11-2 to extend their lead to 10 points, causing Morristown to call timeout. That did very little, however, to ground the Jets. They continued to overpower the Yellow Jackets for a first set victory.
“I thought we had some hitting errors in the first game that we needed to clean up. We also had four service errors, and against a well-coached team that can hurt you. Morristown brought a lot of energy that first game, so we wanted to put the stress on them to make plays,” Case said.
The second set proved to be more competitive. Morristown was able to take its first lead of the match by gaining an early 6-4 advantage. But that is as large as Hauser would let the Yellow Jackets lead get. In a set that featured 11 ties, the Jets answered every Morristown run. After Hauser’s lead grew to 18-13, the Yellow Jackets battled back to tie the game at 19 and again at 22, but an emphatic kill by Hannah Johnson, who led the Jets with nine in the match, sparked a three point run that allowed the Jets to put the second set away.
“We wanted to come in confident but not overconfident tonight. We want to think that we will do well, but we certainly did not overlook Morristown tonight,” Johnson said. “Sometimes we will lose focus during a match, but I think we can get it back pretty quickly, and we were able to do that tonight.”
Much like the second set, Morristown made Hauser work for the victory. The Jets manage to work their way to a 12-8 lead before the Yellow Jackets trimmed the deficit to one a 13-12. But like it did all evening, Hauser had an answer. The Jets upped their lead back up to five, 19-14 and never let Morristown get closer than three points in closing out the set and the match.
And just like the nine previous seasons to this one, Hauser hoisted the championship trophy.
“During sectional, every team is different. With it all on the line, they play differently than during the regular season. So, when they made some runs, we were able to stop them tonight. Coach has had us focusing on that all season and it really helped tonight,” Hauser setter Aunaka Wasil said.
Wasil led the Jets in assists with 22. Kylie Lock paced them in digs with 38 and aces with two.
Hauser advanced to the championship match by defeating Southwestern (Shelby) 25-22, 25-14, 25-22 in the morning semifinals. Leading the way for the Jets were Lock with 17 kills, Wasil with 28 assists, Lock and Fugate with 18 digs each and Abby Branum and Wasil with two aces.
