Volleyball: Dixon starts hot, ends strong for another regional title

DIXON – In the end, it had to be Mady Tichler slamming a kill to end the match for Dixon.

After starting out red-hot in Thursday’s Class 3A Dixon Regional final at Lancaster Gym, it was apropos that the Duchesses’ senior outside hitter was the one to score the final point to send them to their second regional title in three years.

[ Volleyball photos from Dixon vs. Morris in 3A Dixon Regional final ]

“I just wanted to get it over and in [bounds]. I didn’t care if it hit the ground or not, I just had to get it over and in the court,” Tichler said of her 10th kill, which sent Dixon to a 25-20, 25-22 win over Morris. “It feels amazing to win it again. We didn’t only win it once, we’ve won it twice now, and the second time is always the best time around.”

“It’s just crazy. It’s such a great experience, winning it again on our home court, having my family here, all the support,” junior hitter Morgan Hargrave said. “It’s such a fun experience, and I’ll never forget this. Two in three years is absolutely crazy. It’s great, it’s so much fun.”

Dixon (23-13) picked up where it left off in Tuesday’s semifinal upset of top-seeded La Salle-Peru, blitzing its way to a 22-10 lead in the first set. All three phases were clicking for the Duchesses, as passes were finding the setters, who were feeding Tichler and the other hitters to set the tone from the start.

“It’s harder when you only have maybe one or two good players on a team, but when you have all-around good players all over the court, it’s really easy to mesh and be able to win,” junior hitter/setter Leah Carlson said. “I felt a lot of anxiety in the beginning, but throughout the game, I felt relaxed. My team was there for me. We’re all just helping each other, picking each other up on every point.”

Tichler was the catalyst for the fast start, ripping four kills and stuffing a block in the first eight points. With the Morris defense turning its attention to Tichler, it opened up the court for Carlson, Hargrave and Izzy Queckboerner to keep the Dixon offense humming along.

“If we get our passes to our setters, we know that Mady can put the ball away, so we’re just going to keep giving her the ball,” Hargrave said. “Our setters do a great job spreading the ball out, but we know if we can get the ball to her, she’s going to put it down.

“They were definitely focused on Mady, so our middles and our right sides were able to get more kills, which is perfect. That’s what we want: we want one of us to go on a run and then have the defense worry about her so we can get our other teammates involved.”

Morris (19-17-1) found an answer in the late stages of the first set. A kill by Tessa Shannon kicked off a five-point surge, then Lily Hansen had a pair of kills and a block to stave off three set points before it ended on a service error.

But that momentum continued in the second set. After a Makenzie Toms ace gave Dixon a 5-3 lead, Morris got kills from Hansen and Hannah Linn to tie it, then another Linn kill and a pair of Alexis Williams aces pushed the lead to 11-7.

“We just picked up the energy. We were right there, and we did the little things and we just corrected what we needed to,” Morris junior libero Alyssa Jepson said. “Our defense sparked us tonight. I feel like we feed off of our hitters, and if our hitters and blockers are doing good, we all just come together. We were able to get them going with good passing.

“Every single time that the hitters go up, they go hard. Every time we receive a serve, the passers focus on getting the best pass that we can so the hitters can hit hard, and that got us going.”

Trailing 15-12, Dixon made its move. Back-to-back kills by Tichler set up a service run for Toms, then kills by Tichler and Queckboerner made it 19-16 Duchesses. Rosemary Misener and Carlson traded kills, then another Carlson kill made it 23-20.

Shannon tooled a kill off the Dixon block, but Tichler stuffed the next attempt to get the Duchesses to match point. A Hansen kill made it 24-22, but Tichler ripped the final kill to set off Dixon’s celebration.

“We’ve been on a roll lately, I feel like. We start strong, we play strong, we end strong. When we get down, we get back up and play strong again,” Tichler said. “We just said, ‘Slow down your minds, take a deep breath, and we got the next one. Just think every time it’s going to you, and you’ve got the next one. Always know what to do.’ We trusted everyone, and we came out and knew we could do it, and we proved it.”

“I think we all just really wanted this so much, and having the motivation to want that so bad, that’s really just our main drive. That’s what leads it all,” Carlson said. “We wanted to keep everything the same [from Tuesday]: the same momentum, the same energy, the same communication. We did that, and we got it done.”

Tichler led Dixon with 10 kills and three block to go with six digs, and Carlson finished with 13 assists, seven kills, seven digs and a block. Hargrave had a team-high 12 digs to go with nine points and two kills; Toms had eight digs, eight points, two aces and a block; and Presley Lappin added nine assists and three digs. Queckboerner finished with four kills, three digs and a block; Solis Thompson had three blocks and three digs; Yui Santos added eight digs; and Emma Olson chipped in four digs.

“Volleyball is a bunch of runs, and we got on a run the first set, then kind of went down, but we knew no matter what, we’re going to keep pushing, we’re going to come back,” Hargrave said. “We went in with the same game plan [as Tuesday]: playing strong, not letting down, attitudes staying up, just having fun playing the game together and not playing scared. We were going to take our big swings, and I think we did exactly that, and it ended well for us.”

Shannon had five kills, Linn spiked four kills, and Hansen added five kills and two blocks for Morris. Williams led the way with 16 assists, 10 digs, five points and three aces; Ayla Phillips added three kills; Jepson finished with nine digs, five points and an ace; and Cami Pfeifer chipped in four digs.

“They have strong hitters, so getting them out of system and into a position where they can’t get to their strong hitters in the best position was kind of our goal tonight,” Morris coach Scott Howell said. “We were able to do that for stretches, but not to the point where we wanted to and put ourselves in the best position to be successful tonight.

“It was tough [to receive their serves], and when we did get the ball up, we just couldn’t get the ball to our hitters in the best positions. Give credit to them. When they got a chance to hit, they were swinging. They’d put up a couple of blocks, and in some moments we got a little bit tentative and afraid of the block, so we did a couple of things that weren’t as aggressive and it gave them the ball back, and they were able to be aggressive.”