Senior-laden Hampshire too much for Westminster Christian

Not every Hampshire player was happy with the Whip-Purs’ two-game sweep on Senior Night.

“I wish it lasted longer. It’s a memory,” Hampshire senior Erin Foss said. “This is the most seniors we’ve had in a long time and I feel like we’ve grown as a team. We’re like a family and it was emotional.

“What got us this win was that we realized how many years we’ve all put into volleyball, and we used that. We put our hearts out there.”

The Whip-Purs used identical scores of 25-14 and 25-14 in dispatching Westminster Christian in a nonconference game in Hampshire.

Game 1 was tied early before the Whip-Purs (11-19) took control, and then ran out to an 8-0 lead to start Game 2 on the serving of Brittany Laffin, who finished with three aces.

The Warriors showed spurts of hanging tough but ultimately, Class 1A Westminster came up short in one particular area against Class 3A Hampshire.

“When we had height-to-height matchups, we played evenly with them,” Westminster Christian Guy Lum said. “They beat us when they had taller girls against our shorter girls.”

Lum didn’t believe a noisy gymnasium in Hampshire on Senior Night took his girls out of their game.

“I used a couple of practices working with the girls to play undistracted, with focus, no matter what the outside noise is,” he said. “So I know the crowd didn’t do a thing to our girls. Our back row did fairly well. We covered and dug up balls but it was just a height mismatch.”

Foss was one of nine seniors playing in their final home game, and had two kills and one assist on Monday. Kaila Kienzler had two kills and a block, Lauren Boremba had eight kills, and Laffin also finished with 14 assists.

Hampshire coach Andrew Lindley saw positive contributions up and down his lineup.

“We came out and played as a team and brought a lot of energy,” Lindley said. “All-around, our ball control and passing was great this year and tonight they really did a good job. It was bringing the energy and the girls working together.”

Lum applauded the play Savannah Dutcher and Jackie Calabrese and despite the loss, likes the direction his girls are headed with the postseason a week away.

“We’ve been working hard serving and hitting and they’ve really improved on offense,” Lum said. “At the beginning of the season we only had (Dutcher), but now we’ve got some hitting going on.”