Lightning 3 Raiders 0
The Hunting Hills Lightning took care of business in three straight sets against the Lindsay Thurber Raiders in their Central Alberta High School 4A girls’ volleyball playoffs at Hunting Hills Thursday, but it didn’t leave head coach Scott Luck all that relaxed.
“Lindsay Thurber played a great match, every set was two points and they pushed us as hard as they could,” said Luck following a 29-27, 25-23, 26-24 victory.
“They have a couple of injuries which hurt them and hats off to them. They challenged us every step of the way.”
In the end that was exactly what Luck and the Lightning wanted and needed as they prepare for the provincials, which open Nov 24 at Strathcona in Edmonton.
“If we don’t have a match like that we don’t go in prepared,” added Luck.
“At this time of the season you need to play competitive matches and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Mind you it’s not easy on the heart,” he said with a laugh.
The Lightning finish their three-team zone round-robin tonight at 6 p.m. against the Cougars at Notre Dame.
The winner goes into the provincials as the top ranked team from the zone.
“It will be a lot of fun,” said Luck.
“We’ve played Notre Dame twice so far and haven’t had a lot of success against them, but we’ve improved since the last time we met.
“But the main thing was to get into the provincials and go from there. Every year we set that goal and now that we made it, it’s a good feeling.
“We have a young core of players (with only two returnees) and this will be great experience for them.”
As the scores indicate the Lightning needed to battle every step of the way against the Raiders, who were missing two regulars in McKenna Barthel and Taylor Heist.
“We had our ups and downs, but the girls know they’re never out of a match and have the confidence in each other to be able to battle back.”
They needed that in the third set when the Raiders scored six straight points to take a 24-21 lead.
“The girls showed a lot of character to battle back . . . to finish that way was huge,” said Luck.
When the Raiders had success it came off a strong serve.
“In the first set we couldn’t handle their No. 3 (Monique Laforce),” said Luck.
“We usually have a three-man service receive, but we had to go to four during certain rotations and that’s when we had some success. When teams are finding those holes you have to be able to adjust.”
Raiders head coach Barb Young was naturally disappointed, but proud of the way her shorthanded squad performed.
“Really proud of them. They stepped up and played the best they could,” she said.
“We needed to make a couple of changes to our lineup because of the injuries and Terri (Cheney) did an excellent job in the middle and Cara (Vandervlis) moved to the right side for the first time all season and did a good job.”
The Raiders finished third among the 4A schools in Red Deer during league play, but have displayed steady improvement all season,
“They came a long way. We beat Western Canada this season and they’re No. 2 in the province. The experience they gained from the season will only help us next year and beyond. A lot of the girls will forget this loss and go forward. It’s too bad for the Grade 12s, but that’s the sport.”
Meanwhile at Notre Dame, the Cougars beat the Lightning 25-23, 18-25, 25-19, 25-22 in boys’ action to set the stage for a huge match against Lindsay Thurber tonight at 6 p.m. at LTCHS.
If the Raiders win all three teams will be 1-1 and there will be a playoff match on Saturday to determine second place.
A Notre Dame win gives them the zone title and the Lightning second place. Hunting Hills beat LTCHS 3-2 on Wednesday.
The top two teams advance to the provincials, Nov. 24-26 at Dr. E.P. Scarlett in Calgary.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com