By John Rittenhouse
Two longtime volleyball rivals met for the first time Tuesday after joining a new conference prior to the 2001 season.
Hills-Beaver Creek and Southwest Christian, who battled each other for years as members of the Tri-County Conference, squared off for the first time in a Red Rock Conference match in Hills.
SWC continued a trend of downing the Patriots by sweeping a three-game match from the hosts. Game scores were 15-9, 15-7 and 15-10.
The win left SWC boasting a 5-1 RRC record, while H-BC slipped to 3-2 in league play.
When the match was complete, all Patriot coach Nicole Fey could to is tip her hat to the E-Gals.
"Whenever we made a mistake, SWC would make a run on us. They did a very good job of taking advantage of our mistakes," she said.
H-BC, which went on a 3-0 run consisting of a kill by Erin Boeve, an ace serve and another service point by LaDonna Sandstede to take an early lead over the E-Gals in Game 1, used another 3-0 surge (service points by Boeve and Tonya Leenderts, and a kill by Boeve) to take a 7-6 lead.
SWC, however scored the next six points to gain a 12-7 cushion before Cassi Tilstra served an ace and another point to bring the Patriots within three points (12-9) of SWC. The E-Gals bounced back to score the next three points and prevail by a 15-9 margin.
The E-Gals rolled to an 8-2 lead in the second game before Sandstede served a pair of points and Boeve produced a kill that made it an 8-5 game.
SWC still led by three points (10-7) when it went on a 5-0 run to take a two-game lead over the Patriots.
A block by Boeve and an ace serve by Leenderts gave the Patriots a 2-0 lead in Game 3, and another block by Boeve put H-BC in front 3-2.
SWC scored the next 10 points to open a 12-3 advantage, and the score was 13-4 when the Patriots received two service points and a kill by Boeve, and one service point each from Leenderts, Brittney Olson and Jody Rentschler to trim SWCÕs lead to four points at 13-9.
H-BC never got any closer than four points as SWC scored two of the final three counters to prevail 15-10.
Boeve led the Patriots with 20 kills in the match, while Sandstede charted 16 set assists.
Leenderts was 13 of 14 serving and had 12 digs. Olson added 10 digs.
The 4-8 Patriots play a road match against Sioux Valley-Round Lake-Brewster before hosting Ellsworth and Edgerton on Monday and Tuesday respectively.