Family dynamics helps Richmond-Burton sweep Genoa-Kingston for Class 2A Marengo Regional title

MARENGO – Richmond-Burton’s family dynamics make for one dynamite girls volleyball team.

“Almost all of them are related,” Rockets coach Mike Kamholz said with a laugh after the once-beaten Rockets defeated Genoa-Kingston 25-10, 25-17 Thursday to win the Class 2A Marengo Regional championship.

Richmond-Burton (36-1), the top seed in subsectional B, moved within one of tying the school record for wins in a season. The Rockets advance to the Marian Central Sectional and will play IC Catholic, the No. 2 seed, at 6 p.m. Tuesday. No. 4 Genoa-Kingston finishes 23-14, despite coming into the season having graduated three Division I athletes off last season’s team.

“We set a goal [at the beginning of the season] of five [wins] over .500,” first-year G-K coach Taylor Spellman said. “We were hoping for our 11th over .500 tonight, but that’s OK. We played a very talented team, and we had our peak moments.”

The regional title was Kamholz’s first in his five seasons as R-B’s coach and the program’s first since 2015.

“Built-in chemistry,” said Kamholz, whose 11-player roster includes sisters Alex and Dani Hopp, Elissa and Mia Furlan, Sophia and Malorie Komar and cousins Delanee Cooley and Zoe Freund. “It’s a huge blessing because they all know each other. Sometimes it can be a little funky because sisters are sisters, but they put volleyball and what we’ve been working toward in front of everything.”

Outside hitter Elissa Furlan and senior setter Alex Hopp, R-B’s only seniors, led the way for the Rockets, whose only loss is to Burlington Central. Furlan had a match-high nine kills and two aces. Hopp had 15 assists.

“We’re all very open and honest with each other,” Alex Hopp said of the Rockets’ family dynamics. “We’re able to help each other through things, and we’re just really supportive.”

R-B set the tone immediately against G-K, a team it also beat during the regular season, jumping out to leads of 6-1 and 12-2 behind an attack that included Elissa Furlan, Freund and Dani Hopp. The Cogs got within 17-10 before the Rockets scored the set’s final eight points, seven behind the serving of lefty Alex Hopp, whose ace made it 21-10.

“We just have so much fire on this team, so much drive,” Alex Hopp said. “We were like, ‘We are not losing this. We’re going to go in and put our all on the court,’ and that’s exactly what we did.”

G-K was more competitive in the second set, changing up shots with a variation of tips and rolls. The set was tied at 5, and the Cogs remained close throughout. They got within 20-16 before a tip kill by Reagan Wisniewski started a 4-0 run for the Rockets, who closed out the match when Elissa Furlan’s attack hit the top of the net and trickled to the floor for a kill.

Wisniewski finished with five kills. The Rockets’ other contributors included Freund (three kills), Dani Hopp (four kills, two blocks) and Cooley (six digs).

“I was very happy with our energy, our focus,” Kamholz said. “We ran the game plan we set up really, really well. Just really proud. We got a lot of young girls out there, and to be able to hold to the game plan and keep that energy going was fantastic.”

Senior Mia Wise had five assists, three kills, two blocks and an ace for G-K. Cogs sophomore Presley Meyer added four kills and six assists, Jessie Fredrickson had three kills and freshman libero Addison Langston contributed four digs.

“[Richmond-Burton] has a very strong offense,” G-K senior middle blocker Addison Vicary said. “But it’s not like anything we haven’t seen before. We just couldn’t play nervous. Maybe in the beginning we did, but toward the end we really started to pick it up.”