Bloomfield sweeps SCAA tournament titles

Jerry Jarrell photo Bloomfield players celebrate a win in Game 1 after a unsuccessful dig attempt by Bell City's Alicia Slagely (No. 15) on game point during Friday night's championship game of the SCAA tournament being held at Richland High School. No. 2 Bloomfield defeated No. 1 Bell City for the title, 25-21, 25-19. [Click to enlarge]

Bloomfield's junior varsity squad lived up to its No. 1 seeding with a comfortable 25-18, 25-15 win over No. 3 Advance in the title game just before the varsity Lady Wildcats took the court and upset top-seeded Bell City, 25-21, 25-19, in the tournament finale.

Bloomfield players, coaches and fans were all smiles on this night.

Jerry Jarrell photo Bloomfield's Megan Pulley delivers a kill through two Bell City defenders during the Lady Wildcats' upset win over the top seeded Lady Cubs in the championship game of the SCAA volleyball tournament Friday night at Richland High School. [Click to enlarge]

"It's pretty amazing," Bloomfield coach Starla Pulley said while the celebration was still going on. "The girls came out tonight and played really, really well. Our defense was excellent, they got the passes to the setters and our hitters were right on target."

Bell City has been the dominate team in the SCAA in recent years while Bloomfield hasn't won a league tournament title since 1992. But Pulley felt this year's team was up for the challenge.

"They went into it like they had nothing to lose," Pulley pointed out. "They went in with confidence, and they were going to play as hard as they could, and they knew they were a good team."

Bell City got off to quick start in Game 1 and it looked like the Lady Cubs were poised to make short work of Bloomfield with an early 10-5 lead. Bloomfield began to settle in and a 7-1 run saw the Lady Wildcats take their first lead, 12-11. Both teams tightened up their games and it was a see-saw battle until Bloomfield finished the Lady Cubs off with a 5-0 run to end Game 1.

During the late run to end Game 1, Bloomfield got two kills from Megan Pulley around a service winner from Lindsay Hutchison, an unforced error on a kill attempt by Bell City's Jasmine Johnson and a soft dink shot that found its way to the court.

Game 2 started much like Game 1 with Bell City bolting to a quick 6-0 lead, but again Bloomfield put together its own 10-2 run to wrestle the lead away from the Lady Cubs for good at 10-7. Bell City tried to get Johnson, who was fairly quite in Game 1, involved in the mix offensively as the two teams traded points until Bloomfield strung two together for a 15-11 lead.

The quality of play from both teams continued to pick up as the pressure of the moment seemed to bring out the best in both squads. The teams again traded points until Hutchison knocked one down from the outside position, then followed it with a soft dink that found an opening in the Lady Cubs' defense (19-14).

Johnson answered for Bell City, but an error by the Lady Cubs and a service winner by Taylor Pulley pushed the Lady Wildcats' advantage to 21-15.

Johnson again responded with a powerful kill off a block attempt (21-16), but Megan Pulley found the range at the net twice around a service error (23-17). A Bloomfield defensive error made it a 23-18 game before Trisha Slagley delivered a service ace (23-19), but the momentum was quickly halted when the Lady Cubs were call for a net violation to send the game to match point, which was delivered by Taylor Fuwell from the service line when the Lady Cubs could not come up with the return.

"We tried to run a quick offense where we weren't just right in the middle," Pulley said of her game plan against a talented Bell City team. "We tried to run some quick's and work the outsides, and those kind of things where they couldn't block as easily."

Megan Pulley led the Lady Wildcats in the kill department with nine, but six kills from Hutchison, five from Taylor Parker, four from Erica Wyatt and three from Lindsay Levitt presented a very balanced offensive attack.

Taylor Pulley paced the team with 23 assists, and coach Pulley gives her credit for the team's success at the net.

"Taylor did a great job moving the ball around and keeping the Bell City blockers off guard," Pulley said. "Our defense was amazing, we have some really good defensive players on our team. They did a great job with getting the passes to Taylor Pulley, so we could run a quick offense to our hitters.

"The varsity team is a very balanced team, every aspect of our team compliments each other," she added. " All of the players are team players and work very well together and this is one of the reasons, they have been successful this year.

"It's an amazing team," Pulley continued. "I told some of the girls that in my book, they are all on the all-county team. We couldn't have done it with just one person. It took all six on the court and the girls that came in off the bench. It took everyone of them to get what we accomplished."

Bloomfield's varsity team, now 21-5 on the season, never dropped a game during the tournament, advancing to the finals with wins over No. 7 Woodland in the first round, then taking out No. 3 Puxico in the semifinals.

Bloomfield's varsity win made it a sweep on the night after the Lady Wildcats had earlier captured the SCAA's junior varsity title over Advance.

Courtney Delay led the Lady Wildcats' jayvee squad with 15 kills, two blocks and four aces. Robyn Chism was charted with 10 assists, while Ashley Overstreet was tops in the dig department with nine.

"The girls played really well tonight (Friday) and as the season goes on they are playing more aggressive and more as a team," Pulley commented. " This is a very talented group of girls and they have a bright future ahead of them. Bloomfield's jayvee record now stands at 17-5-2 for the season.

In the third place games, No. Dexter defeated No. 3 Puxico in the varsity bracket, 25-16, 25-20, while No. 5 Puxico defeated No. 2 Bernie, 25-11, 24-26, 25-16, in the jayvee's third-place contest.