Lake players and coaches posing for a picture after their historic district final win over Otsego in three sets at Swanton High School. (Drake Harlett/Sentinel-Tribune)
By Nicholas Huenefeld
Special to the Sentinel-Tribune
SWANTON — For the first time in school history, the Lake volleyball team will appear in the regional tournament.
Taryn DeWese’s triple-double highlighted a 25-19, 25-17, 25-13 win over Otsego in a Division II district championship match inside Swanton’s Kevin J. McQuade Gymnasium on Thursday.
Lake (20-6) advances to the regional semifinals against Lima Shawnee on Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Lexington.
After her team suffered heartbreaking five-set defeats in the district championship the past two seasons, DeWese made sure this season was different, finishing with 20 kills, 17 assists, 14 digs and two aces.
Vayda Delventhal also had a big performance, nearly adding a triple-double of her own before totaling 11 kills, 13 assists, eight digs and three aces.
“Our seniors have been preparing for this for four years,” Lake coach Amy Vorst said. “We lost in the district final last year and the year before against really good teams, but the girls play a high-level year-round to prepare for this.”
Neither team could gain control early, which led to a 19-all tie. The Flyers, however, turned it up another gear from there to finish the set on a 6-0 run that featured kills from four different players. That included back-to-back terminations on the final two points from DeWese, who finished with eight kills and seven assists alone in the opening frame.
“I just knew that I had to focus and not let mistakes get to me,” DeWese said. “This was a big game, and it is hard not to let mistakes get to you when there’s a big crowd. But really, I just knew that I needed to keep my energy high, and I couldn’t have done it without my teammates putting me in a great position.”
The Flyers then continued their strong play, finishing with 14 kills and just two errors along with four aces in the second set alone. They scored four of the first five points and led 10-5 following an ace from Calli Conley, who had four of Lake’s 12 aces. A back row termination from DeWese increased the margin to as many as 10 before they secured a two-set lead.
“I think they gained a little bit of confidence,” Vorst said. “We started to roll a little bit in the second set and our game plan is if you can hit the ball, hit the ball. They came back out more aggressive in the second half of that set and finished it off.”
Otsego opened the third set with back-to-back points, but Lake quickly quelched that momentum with a 7-0 run that featured a pair of aces from Delventhal. Down the stretch, the Flyers had seven kills over the final 11 points, including four from DeWese, who secured her 20th kill from the left side on match point.
“(Taryn) was dialed in,” Vorst said. “She’s my kid where I know if we need a sideout, I tell Vayda to give her the ball. I know that she’s so smart that if she doesn’t have a ball that she can bang, she can roll a shot. She played great.”
Sydney Stanley and Sydney Marchetto produced 11 and 10 digs, respectively. Each of them also added an ace, as well as freshman Alayna Meadows. Maura Deutschman chipped in four kills.
“I thought Maura came in on the right side and hit the ball as hard as she possibly could and that got our team pumped up,” Vorst said.
Otsego’s Kendall St. John led her team with six kills while Faith Keifer had 14 assists.
“We came into this year knowing we lost a lot of talent and had a lot of young kids coming in, so we had a lot of sophomores and freshmen that came up and really stepped into roles,” Otsego coach Gabby Smith said.
“We asked them to play Otsego volleyball and had them come up with what that meant, and we came out with a 19-7 record to end it and we couldn’t have asked for much more.”
