The Lions volleyball team beats St. Mary’s 25-12, 25-23, 25-17
The West Linn volleyball team is right where it wants to be.
The Lions, the reigning Class 6A state champions, finished the Three Rivers League regular season with a flourish, racing past St. Mary’s 25-12, 25-23, 25-17 at West Linn High School on Tuesday, Oct. 18.
“We had a lot of energy and, I won’t lie — our student section helped us out a lot with that,” said senior outside hitter Amyah Semau. “They gave us a lot of energy.”
“We just focus on playing as a unit instead of individuals, and we’ve been working pretty hard in practice to work out our kinks and I think that shows on the court,” said senior outside hitter Addie Hoover.
“We had a lot of fun. The energy was really great,” added senior outside hitter Olivia Trobetsky. “It was senior night and the whole day was really fun so I feel like that kind of fed into our game tonight.”
With the win, the team’s sixth in its last seven matches, the Lions finished second in the TRL at 9-3 and improved to 16-9 overall. Next up, West Linn — unranked in the latest Class 6A coaches poll and 11th in the OSAA power rankings — will host a first-round contest in the Class 6A state playoffs on Wednesday, Oct. 26.
St. Mary’s — 18th in the OSAA power rankings — lost its second straight match and fell to 6-5 in TRL play and 12-10 overall.
The Lions dominated the night’s first set and eventually won 25-12, capping their dominating performance with an ace by sophomore Allison Hawk.
The second set was hotly contested from start to finish, with the Blues pushing ahead 19-17 after back-to-back kills by junior Julissa Pernsteiner and a block by junior Eleanor Brecke and Pernsteiner. But the Lions put together an 8-4 run down the stretch to win 25-23, with Semau collecting four kills in that span and Hoover two, including the game-winner from the left side set by junior Olivia Doel.
West Linn put its stamp on the third set early, running off seven straight points to lead 10-3 with Semau serving, a stretch that included two aces by Semau and two Hoover kills. St. Mary’s edged back within five points after that, only to see the Lions push their edge to 15-6 when Semau connected down the line from the left side.
The Blues got no closer than six the rest of the way — at 19-13 on a kill by sophomore Nina Read set by junior Adrienne Nguyen — and the Lions pulled away down the stretch, thanks in large part to St. Mary’s hitting errors.
“I think as the season has gone on, we’ve grown more comfortable and confident,” Semau said. “It’s really showing.”
“I think it’s just our mindset,” Hoover said. “(it’s) just going out there and having fun, leaving it all out on the court no matter what and being proud of ourselves.”
“I feel like we’ve been playing really well the past few weeks,” Trobetsky added. “We’ve really grown as a team and we’ve just played better together, as a team and not individually. That energy has been really positive so I feel like that’s really helped our team.”
For the match, Semau finished with 24 kills on 46 swings, hit a 0.391, along with nine digs and one block. Hoover added 11 kills on 25 swings with 13 digs. And Doel had 29 assists and six digs.
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