Rachel Crader is the editor of semoball.com. She graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in May of 2009 before spending the summer covering the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Highlights from Rachel's days in college include having a class down the hall from Chase Daniel and having NCAA wrestling champion Ben Askren hold the door open for her at Brady Commons, Mizzou's student center. She spent time covering Mizzou basketball, softball and baseball while working for the Columbia Missourian and is excited to return home to Southeast Missouri to cover local sports for semoball.com.

Rachel has covered three Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournaments for the Southeast Missourian and semoball.com, and she'll see you courtside again this year.

Scott City downs Leopold in volleyball

Posted Monday, September 28, 2009, at 10:31 PM

I traveled back to the homestead to watch Leopold and Scott City battle in volleyball. For those that follow the sport, you know this was a big matchup. New state rankings were supposed to be released on Monday but were not, so we'll have to go with last week's rankings, which had Leopold at No. 2 in Class 1 and Scott City No. 2 in Class 2.

Unfortunately, no heavyweight battle materialized. (Unless you count the JV game, which Leopold won in three games. From what I saw both teams can expect to field good team for years to come because the level of play was very high on both sides of the net.) Scott City won 25-10, 25-19 in the varsity contest.

The match was entertaining at times when Leopold was able to get its offense going and hit at Scott City a bit, but the Wildcats just weren't able to do that often enough, which had a lot to do with the play on the other side.

Katie Hogan and others served extremely well throughout the game, in my opinion. Although the Rams didn't ace Leopold all that often, the serving was enough to disrupt Leopold's passing and keep them from hitting well throughout the match.

Leopold coach Sandy Davis said a couple times that the loss would help her team learn where it needed to improve while Scott City coach Haley Jennings had to be pleased that her team executed well in all the areas that it knew it would need to in order to win the match.

A few members of the Rams told me after the match that they knew they would have to receive serve and play good defense (including blocking) to win, and that's exactly what they did on Monday night.

Overall, it was hard to not be impressed with the way Scott City dealt with the noisy environment and the big matchup.

I'll have a story up on the game in a bit.

I'll continue to make it out to the occasional game, including sports other than volleyball, as we go through the rest of the high school sports calendar. Hopefully one day I'll be able to find some wireless internet!

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(I'm getting these lines from the actual article by the way) "small and notoriously loud gymnasium" mwahahaha i love it. "And then the crowd was quiet for a moment." that i don't know so much about...leopold played awesome in my eyes though!

-- Posted by queenofsidelines on Tue, Sep 29, 2009, at 9:07 AM
I totaly agree with you queenofsidelines, hated that you didn't get your birthday wish, but still exellent play by the Wildcats up against stiff competition. The Lady Wildcats never "wilted" and never gave up and that's what I love to see.

-- Posted by farminmarsh on Tue, Sep 29, 2009, at 9:58 AM
You're right, queen. The moments lasted for about .76 seconds before everyone in the student section starting going crazy again.

And, farminmarsh, I promise I'm going to e-mail you...like I promised!

-- Posted by Rachel Crader on Tue, Sep 29, 2009, at 10:42 AM
Both of these programs represent what high school volleyball is all about. Great fans, great coaches, and dedicated athletes. I wouldn't be surprised if both of these programs make it to the state tournament at the end of the season.

-- Posted by drawmules on Tue, Sep 29, 2009, at 1:09 PM
The amazing thing is that Scott City has kept all of it's players at Scott City High School. I'm sure there has been some "encouragement" for players to explore other sources of education.

-- Posted by joefrank78 on Tue, Sep 29, 2009, at 7:11 PM
Joefrank78, you are right, I saw the other day the new metrolink bus stops that are being installed on I-55 so all Scott City, Kelso, Oran, Chaffee, Benton, Sikeston, and Charleston kids can catch a ride up to Notre Dame Universal Inter-galactial High School.

-- Posted by 6+4+3=2 on Wed, Sep 30, 2009, at 8:56 AM
If you build it they will come. Notre Dame also has one of the top volleyball programs in Southeast Missouri. Don't count them out in 3A. It is more difficult for Southeast Missouri schools to get to state in 3A than 1A and 2A. Notre Dame has done if before, however. History repeats itself my friends.

-- Posted by drawmules on Wed, Sep 30, 2009, at 11:46 AM

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