TOLEDO — The Lake volleyball team couldn’t overcome a tough start on the road in a 25-15, 25-19, 25-21 loss to St. Ursula on Monday.
“I think we came in scared,” Lake head coach Amy Vorst said. “After that first set, we serve-receive passed a lot better, but they just had a better offense than we did. That’s my takeaway.
“We did not terminate. Our pins couldn’t terminate a ball. Period. That’s what the problem was.”
The teams exchanged the first few points of the match, but St. Ursula opened up an 8-2 lead, led by as many as 12 and shook off a late 5-1 run from the Flyers to take the opening set.
St. Ursula initially scored four straight to open up a 13-9 lead in the second set, but Lake fought back within one following an ace from Lucy Boos.
From there, the Arrows scored three straight to take a 20-16 lead, which forced a timeout, and they eventually led by as many as six down the stretch.
“We would do some boneheaded stuff in the flow, like set a ball beyond the pin, or hit a ball right to six or right to middle back,” Vorst said.
Caity Extine opened the third set with a right-side kill for Lake, which led 4-1 through the first five points.
The Arrows answered with five consecutive points, but Lake rallied to take a 10-9 lead following a kill and an ace from Layna Meadows on back-to-back points.
A Mylah Vorst termination put Lake up 11-10 moments later, but a 5-0 rally from St. Ursula put them back in control. The Flyers inched as close as three on two occasions down the stretch, but the hosts finished off the sweep.
Lake also suffered some key service errors with one-point margins in the second and third sets.
“We missed more serves than we should have,” Vorst said. “I always tell my kids to serve in seams and instead of doing seams, we were serving right at people.
“And (St. Ursula) has excellent ball control. We knew that coming in, that they were going to serve aggressively and that they could pass the ball. They proved it.”
Vorst led the Flyers (1-1) with eight kills, while Meadows registered six kills and 14 digs. Sydney Marchetto chipped in 13 digs.
“I told the kids that this is one of the best competitions we’re going to have this season, and I’m glad we had it in the second match,” Vorst said.
“Now we can grow from this point on. We can work on hitting shots by our outsides, pursuing corner-to-corner in the back row … this is definitely one to learn and grow from.”
