Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – The more Sariah Sherman and Bailey Simpson played on Tuesday the better the two Clear Creek Amana middles performed.

It was no coincidence that fourth-ranked Clear Creek Amana began to click around the same time Simpson and Sherman got rolling.

Simpson and Sherman each had nine kills, 15 of which came in the final two sets, as Clear Creek Amana overcame a slow start to down Dallas Center-Grimes 21-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-18 in the Class 4A, Region 4 title game in Tiffin.

“Once you can get the middle involved it opens everything up,” Clear Creek Amana junior setter Emily Henderson said. “When Sariah and Bailey started hitting it pulled their block and everything else was open.

Those girls putting the ball away, I think it’s what won us the game.”

Simpson had all nine of her kills in the final two sets and Sherman had six of her nine kills in the final two sets as Clear Creek Amana (37-7) returned to the state tournament for the third consecutive season.

“We definitely came determined trying to show people that we are still the same team and we can do everything we did last year,” Simpson said. “It feels really good to be back at state.”

Clear Creek Amana graduated four starters including three of its top four hitters and four-year libero off last year’s 46-1 state semifinal team.

Despite the losses the Clippers are headed back to state where they will face fifth-ranked Pella (39-7) in a Class 4A state quarterfinal on Monday at 6 p.m. at Xtream Arena in Coralville.

“I think it’s been a standard that has been set and it’s kind of the expectation that they all have of each other,” Clear Creek Amana coach Jackie Clubb said. “It’s kind of an unspoken expectation that we are going to be a state tournament team every year and we are going to do our best and that’s the standard they’ve set for themselves.”

Averie Lower had a team-high 14 kills, including six in a pivotal second-set win for the Clippers.

Lower had three ace serves and three blocks as Clear Creek Amana finished with 10 solo blocks.

“We worked a lot on blocking this week and sometimes some things work on a night and sometimes they don’t,” Clubb said. “Tonight we finally got it together at the right time and it worked.”

Dallas Center-Grimes (22-19) was sharp early, jumping to a 15-11 lead in the opening set on its way to a 25-21 win in set one.

Senior Maliya Carlson had eight of her match-high 21 kills in the opening set.

Clear Creek Amana slowly worked itself back into control.

The Clippers rallied from a 16-14 deficit in the second set to win 25-23 and build some momentum.

“We got more comfortable,” Sherman said. “We started having fun and we had to play our game and we knew if we played our game we’d get it.”

Lower had six of her 14 kills in the second set but it was Sherman that clinched the second-set win with a cross country kill.

That seemed to spark the junior middle.

“It’s beyond important,” Sherman said of the energy. “We get energy from every person on the court and we were able to feed off that tonight and it was electric.”

Sherman and Simpson combined for seven kills in a 25-22 win in the third set and had eight in a 25-18 Clipper win in the fourth.

Junior Elizabeth Timmerman added six kills for the Clippers including four in the fourth set.

“As the game went on we really utilized our middles and Bailey and Sariah both had such great games,” Lower said. “Elizabeth had an amazing game as well and that helps so much.”

Addie Abens had 11 kills and Landry Glasgow had eight for Dallas Center-Grimes.

Dallas Center-Grimes          25  23  22  18

Clear Creek Amana              21  25  25  25

Clear Creek Amana (Kills-aces-blocks)

Kendra Eckrich 2-0-1, Elizabeth Timmerman 6-1-0, Kendall Ronnfeldt 0-2-0, Bailey Simpson 9-1-2, Emily Henderson 1-0-1, Julia Schlarbaum 1-0-1, Sariah Sherman 9-0-2, Averie Lower 14-3-3, Totals 42-7-10.

Assists – Emily Henderson 35

Dallas Center-Grimes (Kills-aces-blocks)

Maliya Carlson 21-0-0, Maggie Leifker 5-0-1, Addie Abens 11-1-0, Kylie Janssen 0-1-0, Gwen Farley 7-1-0, Landry Glasgow 8-1-0, Ava Smid 0-2-0, Deja Jackson 5-0-3, Totals 57-5-4.

Assists – Gwen Farley 44, Kylie Janssen 1

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