By John RittenhouseThe Hills-Beaver Creek volleyball team couldn’t defend its 2003 South Section 3A Tournament championship when the annual postseason event opened in the Luverne Elementary School Friday.The eighth-seeded Patriots drew a tough task when they were pitted against No. 1 Southwest Christian in the tournament’s quarterfinal round.In the end, the pre-tournament seedings held their form. Favorite Southwest Christian dominated play by outscoring the Patriots 75-34 on the way to a 3-0 victory.The loss ended what was a disappointing 6-16 season for the Patriots. SWC advanced to the tournament’s semifinals with the victory, where the E-Gals beat Edgerton Public 3-0 in Luverne Monday.According to H-BC coach Curt Doorneweerd, the Patriots couldn’t put anything together against SWC. He thought the Patriots might be able to surprise the E-Gals after putting in a spirited week of practice prior to Friday’s match, but it didn’t carry over into the contest."We just didn’t show up ready to play," Doorneweerd said. "It was kind of weird, because we probably had the best week of practice coming into the match that I can remember us having all season. We just came out flat and couldn’t recover."The Patriots didn’t offer the E-Gals much of a challenge in Game 1, which developed into a convincing 26-6 win for SWC.H-BC played progressively better in the final two games, but it couldn’t record a victory against SWC.The E-Gals recorded 25-13 and 25-15 victories in the second and third games to earn their berth in the tournament’s semifinals."It was hard for me to tell how well SWC played because we didn’t make them earn any points," Doorneweerd said. "I think they can win the sub-section, but we’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out."H-BC, which dropped its last eight matches of the campaign, received a six-kill, two-block effort from Kelly Mulder in the finale.Cassi Tilstra was eight of eight serving and charted three kills for H-BC.
