FREMONT – Having climbed out of a two-set hole and forcing a fifth and final set Monday night in a sweltering Purple Pit, the Lady Giant volleyball team were going to finish what they started.
Olivia DeRodes
Hayley Lawrence
And while their comeback had been hard-fought, back-and-forth battles the Lady Giants wasted no time putting the Lake Flyers away.
Carrying all the momentum from the previous two sets, Ross rolled easily in the fifth set to complete the comeback, winning 3-2 over Lake, 15-25, 23-25, 25-22, 25-23, 15-4.
“It is a huge win, we had to fight really, really hard,” said senior Olivia DeRodes. “But we knew we weren’t playing to our potential in Games 1 and 2 and we knew we had to pick up our energy and that’s what we did.
“I’m just really proud of my team.”
After starting slowly, dropping the first two sets, Ross found itself in a 10-5 hole in the third set before the Lady Giants finally found their rhythm. They scored the next five points to tie the set and soon after led 15-13 after a powerful kill by AnneMarie Moses off a Kelsey Weickert assist.
Ross continued to hold its two-point lead until a Lake timeout with the score 20-18.
“We talked a lot about gameplans today and sticking to our gameplans and having energy both on the bench and on the court,” said coach Kari Shull. “That’s usually what I saw in most timeouts, reminding them of the gameplan and what our goal was coming in.”
AnneMarie Moses
Mia Boda
Back-to-back blocks by Moses closed out the game and continued the match to a fourth set.
In the fourth, Ross held a 23-16 lead, but Lake didn’t go down quietly. Lake scored seven of the next eight points to climb within one, 23-24, but the Flyers hit the ball out of the bounds and the Lady Giants were celebrating a tied match.
“It feels great. We fought our hardest,” junior Hayley Lawrence said. “We said ‘We did not come this far to lose.’ We had to keep pushing and get every single point.”
With the match knotted at two sets a piece, the Lady Giants put the foot down on the Flyers. Ross jumped out a 6-0 lead thanks to a block and kill by Moses, a pair of services aces by Lawrence and a great diving dig by Mia Boda which landed for a point.
A few minutes later, DeRodes set up a cross-court pass for Lawrence whose kill ended the set and the match, completing the comeback for the Lady Giants.
“It’s exciting,” Shull said. “I think it took quite a few team members to get us there tonight. I changed the lineup and who was doing what and even their roles in Set 3 to try to sneak a win. These kids deserve to get a win and we tried to get them there. It took a whole team effort to do that.”
The victory is Ross first of the season (1-2 overall). The Lady Giants will look to make it two in a row on Thursday when they travel to Lima Senior.
Junior varsity
The JV Lady Giants also came up victories, defeating Lake 2-0 by scores of 25-18 and 25-21.