• BY MIKE FORMAN
• Originally published November 21, 2009 at 10:25 p.m., updated November 22, 2009 at 8:54 a.m.

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SAN MARCOS -- Bronte had the tradition, but Louise had the power and the passion.

The Lady Hornets overcame some early mistakes and brought home their first UIL state volleyball championship before a raucous crowd on Saturday morning at Strahan Coliseum.

Louise dropped the first set, 25-16, before storming back to win the next three, 25-19, 28-25, 25-11, and lifted the Class 1A state championship trophy on the court after finishing the season with a 41-4 record.

"It was pretty much like we thought," said senior Amber Bain. "But there were so many more people watching everybody play. Being on the court is a whole different feeling."

Bain played like she has all season, recording 25 kills and blocking six shots to be voted the championship match MVP.

"She makes me look like I know what I'm doing," Louise coach Bryan Branch said of Bain, who had 51 kills in the tournament. "I can't say enough good things about Amber Bain. She's a great kid. I'm probably a little hard on her sometimes. I expect her to kill every shot because she's such a great athlete. She really makes me look good."

Louise appeared nervous in the first game and was having trouble setting up kill shots for Bain and Katie Brown, who finished with 10. But the Lady Hornets didn't panic, even though the Longhorns (40-6) were making their 12th appearance at the state tournament.

"I didn't ever think we were a better team than they were, I thought we were pretty evenly matched," Branch said. "I watched them yesterday (in the semifinals) and I thought we were pretty much mirror images of each other. They have good middles and we have good middles and we play pretty much the same style.

"In the first game, we were worried because we were passing poorly, terribly. I thought the moment was into us and I was a little worried about it. But it's a credit to those girls, they just persevered and adjusted and started playing well."

The Lady Hornets settled down in the second game before twice overcoming game-point deficits, including one where a Bronte player returned a serve that appeared headed out of bounds, in the third game to seize the momentum.

"Even when we did lose, I felt like we had a better team," Bain said. "We made a lot of errors and normally we don't make a lot of errors. But once we got to the ball and started killing it, we were pretty good."

Louise was solid in all phases against Bronte. They had 14 service aces, including five by Ashley Wagner, four by Lauren Hlavaty and three by Kirsten Machicek, who also had 16 assists. Kaleigh Kutac had 22 assists with many of them going to Bain.

"We knew she was a great player," Bronte coach Keith McCutchen said. "She was everything we thought she would be."

Winning a state championship was every bit as rewarding as Bain had envisioned.

"I've been to the state track meet, but I never crossed the finish line," Bain said. "Well, I did, but there's no comparison. This is so much better because we did it as a team."

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