Lutheran St. Charles continues to be Hannibal volleyball team’s postseason nemesis

CHESTERFIELD, Mo. — For the second straight season, Lutheran St. Charles got in the Hannibal volleyball team’s way of a district championship.

The Cougars beat the Pirates 25-17, 25-22, 25-20 on Monday at Parkway Central High School to capture the Class 4 District 4 title. Lutheran St. Charles also swept Hannibal in last year’s district championship match.

“All the sets were very competitive,” Hannibal coach Kelsey Pollard said of Monday’s match. “We gave them a good run for their money. They had to play well to beat us. The first set, we had too many errors, and that’s what cost us. Set two and three, we were fighting through, and things just didn’t land our way. That happens sometimes.”

Of the 25 points the Cougars scored in the first set, nine came on Hannibal hitting errors.

“It was some aggression, and when you come into a big match, you expect a little bit of that because of the adrenaline,” Pollard said of those errors.

Hannibal jumped out to a 12-6 lead in the second set, but the Cougars rattled off a 7-0 run to take the lead and eventually the set.

“We couldn’t get out of one of our serve receive rotations,” Pollard said. “It wasn’t just serve receive. All across the board, it was just not working for us. We tried a timeout. We tried subbing people in. It was just a tough spot for us.”

The Pirates couldn’t recapture the momentum in the third set, and the Cougars eliminated the Pirates from the postseason for the third time in the last four seasons. Lutheran St. Charles beat Hannibal in the 2021 Class 4 sectional.

Despite the abrupt end to the season, Pollard had an encouraging message to her team.

“I told the girls, ‘No matter what happens tonight, I am so proud of you. You guys have played together as a team, and we have made some major strides,’” Pollard said. “I’ve seen a lot of improvements throughout the year.”

Pollard pointed to the Pirates’ scrappiness as one of the keys to their ability to compete with some of the top teams in the area and the state. Before Monday, their only losses outside of tournaments came to Quincy Notre Dame and Columbia Rock Bridge. These teams have a combined 54-9 record.

“Across the board, that has been really big for us defensively,” Pollard said. “When something doesn’t go our way, we did really well at being scrappy, and I got lots of compliments from lots of coaches about how scrappy we were. We practiced those passes that don’t go our way and what we’re going to be able to do to run an offense.”

That defense was not up to the Pirates’ usual standards on Monday.

“One of my goals this year was to be able to produce an offense even when our setter is not involved in the set and when our passes aren’t where they should be,” Pollard said. “Unfortunately, we were forced to not play our game tonight because we were struggling on defense to be able to put the ball anywhere near where it needed to be to run an offense.”

The Pirates’ district semifinal match against Fort Zumwalt South on Friday and Monday’s district championship occurred on days Hannibal had off of school, which threw a wrinkle into the Pirates’ typical game day schedule.

“They were all out of routine,” Pollard said. “They weren’t doing things they normally do. It was tough on the girls mentally to sit at home all day thinking about it and then try to show up for a big match.”

Malia Stolte led the Pirates (26-8) with 11 kills and also had nine assists. Aly Falconer paced the team with 16 assists. Emilia Bates had eight kills, and Abbie Martin put down six kills and had seven digs.

The Cougars (22-13) advance to the Class 4 sectional where they await the winner of the District 3 title match between John Burroughs and Ladue Horton Watkins. That match will take place Tuesday.