Kayla Camp plants herself under a Kingsley serve during the Cardinals regional semifinal loss on Tuesday.
Brent Baker
W-P's Alyssa Gielda won this battle at the net, but Kingsley won the war Tuesday with a three-game regional semifinal sweep of the Cards.

McBAIN - Nov. 11, 2008 - Forgive the Whittemore-Prescott girls if they have seen enough of Kingsley over the past several seasons.

For the fourth time in 24 months, Kingsley ended a Whittemore-Prescott season in the regional semifinals, on Tuesday sweeping the Cards 25-16, 25-12, 25-18.

Kingsley also eliminated W-P in the 2006-7 regional volleyball tournament, as well as the 2007 and 2007-8 girls basketball regionals.

This time around, the Cardinals couldn't overcome slow starts in each of the three games, falling behind 4-0, 7-0 and 5-0. In each of those starting runs by Kingsley, the serving of Hilary Hoeflin and the hitting of outside hitter Sam Zubalik.

W-P didn't recover from those quick starts until the third game, when the Cards rallied to take a 13-12 lead as Larrissa McGeathy and Chloe Moraitis got untracked on the front line.

"I feel we didn't really start playing to our potential until the third game," said W-P coach Helen Loomis. "Kingsley had a well-rounded, talented team that hit and blocked well.

"We kept getting off to a slow start and couldn't get our own fire going."

The Stags, who put an athletic squad on the court that held a height advantage over all but McGeathy, routinely were able to get two blockers in position on W-P's hits to make life tough at the net all night.

W-P stayed as close as 17-16 in the third game and were still within 20-17 before Kingsley scored five of the last six points to earn a trip to Thursday's regional final against Boyne City.

Chelsea Jasman had eight spike kills, seven digs, two blocks and an ace for W-P, with Moraitis adding four kills, Leighanna Loomis eight digs; Cortney Bork had six service points and an ace and Kayla Camp had 17 assists.

"Getting to this point was exciting," said Loomis of the Cards, who finished at 15-21-1 for the year. "The girls had a great run last wee and should feel proud of their district championship."