Janesville overpowers Sidney in 1A final

CEDAR RAPIDS - Janesville's height brought an end to Sidney's storybook season, and in the process wrote another championship chapter to its own tale.

Junior Gillian Gergen peppered the court with a game-high 21 kills, and third-ranked Janesville won its second state championship in three years, 20-25, 25-17, 29-27, 25-13, over No. 4 Sidney Friday at the U.S. Cellular Center.

'I'm very proud of my team,” Janesville Coach Shelly Sorensen said. 'They worked hard for this. We set this as a goal early in the year. We had to work hard for it. It wasn't easy. It never is.”

It definitely wasn't easy early on for the Wildcats, as Sidney's strong defense continually kept kill attempts alive long enough to secure a first-game win for the upstart Cowgirls.

'They are such an incredible, good defense team,” Gergen said. 'I think we thought every ball was down and it wasn't.”

Janesville (28-14) leaned on its biggest advantage over the remainder of the match – its height. No Sidney player stood above 5-foot-9, while the Wildcats' roster – led by the 6-foot middle hitter Gergen – had five players at least that tall.

'That hopefully ended up being the difference,” Sorensen said. 'Got a few key blocks in there at key times.”

Gergen and senior middle hitter Andrea Hesse – the lone holdovers from that 2013 state championship team – helped push a 15-13 Janesville lead to an eight-point Game 2 win with a 10-4 closing surge. Hesse finished with five kills and five digs.

In Game 3, Sidney rallied from a pair of six-point deficits to tie it on three occasions. Four Gergen kills got Janesville within two points of winning the game at 23-18, but Sidney freshman Camryn McClintock fired several kills to rally the Cowgirls. Sidney fought off four game points before a Gergen block and kill won it, 29-27.

'It was super important because we really didn't want to give them momentum,” said Gergen, a Drake commit.

Three Gergen kills highlighted a 6-0 start to Game 4, which the Wildcats led by as many as 11 points. Sophomore Kennedy Meister chipped in 11 kills and a team-high 14 digs, one of six Wildcats with at least 11 digs.

'It's just an incredible feeling to do it with the girls that I've been training with,” Gergen said. 'I've been with almost all of them since fifth grade, so it's just an incredible experience to do it with them.”

Bree Thompson added 13 kills and 11 digs for Janesville, while setter Karlee Boyle recorded 29 assists and 13 digs.

McClintock notched 14 kills, while senior Lexy Larson led with 16 for Sidney (34-2), which lost for the first time in 31 matches in its first trip to the state tournament.

'We were outsized and we just couldn't stop the middles,” Sidney Coach Amy McClintock said. 'That was the biggest thing. They ran a quicker middle attack and we had trouble getting touches on the ball tonight. I think the girls came out, they never gave up and I that's all we can ask for.”

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