Comets waste no time in advancing to regional final

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — If you’re one of those sport fans who believes that timeouts are better used for temperamental toddlers than by meandering game managers, then Sue Hoefer might be your type of coach.

“If they had gotten one more point, I might have called one,” the Charles City volleyball coach said of when her team allowed Mason City to pull within striking distance in the first set (22-18) after the Comets had led by as many as 14 during the Class 4A-Region 5 semifinals Tuesday.

“But I knew our girls were going to pull through, so I let them play.”

Andy Reid … are you listening?

Hoefer didn’t waste a timeout, and the Comets didn’t waste much time in finishing the first set (25-18) then winning the next two (25-16, 25-8) while eliminating the Mohawks and advancing to Halloween’s (Oct. 31) regional final at Charles City.

The Comets (36-5) will face the winner of the Waterloo East at Waverly-Shell Rock semi that also was played on Tuesday.

Last year, W-SR eliminated Charles City in the regional final. This year, the Comets defeated the Go-Hawks twice which resulted in Northeast Iowa Conference regular-season the tournament titles.

“It’s been a matter of us staying healthy this season,” said Hoefer, whose daughter — Katie Foster — was plagued with a dislocated knee injury this time last year which eventually shut her down for the subsequent track and softball seasons her junior year.

Foster sure looked 100 percent against the Mohawks as her series of kills helped put Charles City up 18-6 in the first set.

Foster’s kill to start the second set and subsequent ace helped put Charles City up 7-1. Several unforced errors moved the Mohawks closer (8-6) and Hoefer to the edge of the court where it looked like she surely was going to call a TO then.

“I didn’t think about calling one at all in the second set,” she said.

Again, there proved to be no need.

Junior Sydney Loeckle set up a pair of kills by Kelsi Crooks, then Loeckle recorded a hitting kill herself to make the score 16-9, Comets. Two more kills by Foster extended the lead to nine (18-9) before Loeckle set up a kill by Tayler Schmidt to end the second set.

The Comets jumped out to a 14-1 lead in the third set when a hard serve by Crooks initiated a Mohawk dig that bounded back over the net where Schmidt was there to clean up with an easy kill.

Loeckle went on to set up kills by Jodie Sindlinger, Foster and Crooks to bring the Comets to the brink at 24-6 before a hit that landed long of the endline by Mohawks ended their season.

Foster had a double-double with 12 kills and 10 digs. She also was 20 of 20 serving.

Loeckle had 18 assists, and junior Sadie Ruzicka led the Comets with 13 digs and was 16 of 16 serving.

“We’re going to approach this week like any other week,” Hoefer said of her team’s pending preparation for the finals. “We’re going to weight train like we usually do and have normal practices. We’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”