Louise clinches district crown
Lady Hornets perfect in district play, peaking as playoffs draw near
By KRIS BAGLEY sports@leader-news.com

L-N Photo by Kris Bagley Passing Perfection Kierra Thornton (2) has helped lead Louise's passing game from a major weakness to a key strength this season. Here, Thornton delivers a pass in the Lady Hornets' match with Woodsboro. Sarah Williamson (back) is also pictured.

Fans attending a volleyball game at Louise may notice a new color added to the Hornet pallet.

The football team will probably never don the scheme, but the district champion Lady Hornets are proud to be pretty in blue, gold and pink.

"You could say that," Kirsten Machicek said of the new, yet unoffi- cial, color scheme.

As a new tradition, the Lady Hornets wear one blue sock and one pink sock in every volleyball match. The team started doing it by chance and won. So they decided to keep it up.

"Coach (Bryan) Branch actually ordered the pink socks at the end of last year," Machicek, Louise's setter, said. "We started off wearing blue socks and then we got the pink socks in. Lauren (Gresham) and Sara (Williamson) forgot one of their socks, so we just ended up wearing one of each.

L-N Photo by Kris Bagley ... Get Set ... As setter, nearly every rally runs through Kirsten Machicek (3). She is in charge of delivering the ball to Louise's heavy hitters and is having a great year.

"Now it's kind of our good-luck charm. We were kind of winning with it, so we thought we would just keep it."

Opponents must be tired of seeing the brightly-colored ladies taking the court. Louise is perfect in district play with an 8-0 record and claimed the district championship Tuesday at Runge - all with the miss-matching socks.

One person on the Lady Hornets' bench is not planning to wear pink no matter how lucky the color may be - Coach Branch.

"No, I'm not wearing any pink," he said. "Our playoff T-shirts have pink in them, so I might wear that."

The only way the coach will wear pink is on the occasion that the entire team serves perfectly for a whole match.

"I have a deal with them where they have to run for missed serves," Branch said. "The deal is, if they ever go 100 percent as a team, then I'll do the running. They said, 'All right, you've got to wear pink socks and you've got to wear a pink shirt.' I told them, 'That's fine. If ya'll go 100 percent and win, I'll do it.'

The coach did say that his pink punishment would only come after serving perfect against a good team. That leaves last night's opponent, 0-8 Tivoli out of the picture.

"There are stipulations to my running," the coach said.

After the Tivoli match, Louise will end the regular season Tuesday at Pettus, which is 5-3 in district play.

Branch said he wants his team to play as if their last two matches were in the playoffs and every game was a mustwin situation. In order to get Pettus to play even harder in their last match of the regular season, Branch has a secret weapon sure to bring on extra energy against his team.

"We're kind of giving Pettus some extra motivation," Branch said. "We've already ordered our district shirts and we're going to wear them on Tuesday just to make them mad and make them bring their A game.

"I told the girls, 'I want to make Pettus mad. I want them to come out and want to beat us hard.' We're just trying to get as much intensity as we can and focus like this is a really important match. "We're trying to simulate as much intensity as we can and the desperation of the playoffs and how valuable every point is."

Even if the Pettus match turns into a loss, Branch said he wants his team to see what it is like to play against a team with extra determination.

"I think it would be good for us," he said. "We need someone to come at us and give us everything that they've got. We've got to play to win and get that whole attitude going. Not where you walk into the gym and can play badly and still win. We need to get that attitude where we have to play well every night and we have to win this match. I'm not trying to be disrespectful to Pettus, I'm trying to motivate us."

Branch said his team lacked that attitude Tuesday when they traveled to Runge.

The Lady Hornets came through with a 5-game win to clinch the district championship in what he said was not up to the level they are used to playing at. Louise won with scores of 26-24, 25-22, 21-25, 15-25 and 15-13.

"I think that part of our problem against Runge is that we were so anxious to win that match," Branch said. "It was almost like we thought every point was going to be worth 25 points and the game was going to be over. We were so nervous and so tight that we made a ton of bad passes and never could get things going."

LOUISE 3, RUNGE 2

	1	2	3	4	5
LOUISE	26	25	21	15	15
RUNGE	24	22	25	25	13

LHS Kill Leaders: Amber Bain 27, Sarah Williamson 19, three others with 1