Carmel turns it up, turns back Lake Forest

On the verge of losing to Lake Forest in two sets again, with Ashley Williams screaming volleyballs off their fingers again, Carmel Catholic's girls decided they would not go down quietly.

Not again.

Not with their season at stake.

So they didn't. And when their comeback was complete, they did some shouting. No. 6 Carmel stunned the third-seeded Scouts 22-25, 25-20, 25-20 in the Class 4A Lake Forest regional final Thursday night.

"That was intense," a smiling Corsairs setter/right side Grace Butler said.

The intensity will ratchet up again Tuesday, when Carmel (23-14) faces No. 2 Stevenson (29-8) at 7 p.m. in the sectional semifinals at Libertyville.

"We were just really loud (after the first set)," libero Elizabeth Tworek said after ringing up 21 of Carmel's 56 digs against the hard-hitting Scouts. "And we played as a team, too. That always helps."

Carmel needed to play its best to defeat Lake Forest (30-7), which captured a pair of two-set wins in as many matches over the Corsairs during the regular season.

And after Williams - a 6-foot-1 junior who's uncommitted - drilled 7 of her match-high 18 kills in the opening set, the Corsairs' season was in jeopardy. They remained unflappable, however, even when Lake Forest took a 19-18 lead in the second set.

Erin Taylor's pair of kills and a trio of unforced errors by Lake Forest helped Carmel score 7 of the last 8 points to force a decisive third set.

"We got better blocks at the net," Carmel coach Dave Pazely said. "We had more touches. We made (Lake Forest's) hitters think twice about what they wanted to do. If you make a hitter start second-guessing themselves, they're no longer the same hitter that they can be. Whether it's a block up front or a dig from the back, hitters get frustrated when they don't put the ball down.

"On top of that," he added, "our hitters started executing because they had a few more opportunities. They had some better sets because our passes were there. It all came together."

Williams had "punished" the Corsairs in the two regular-season matches, Pazely said. She continued to slam winners throughout the match, but Carmel did a better job of limiting the damage in the final two sets.

In the third, the Corsairs grabbed an early lead and maintained it.

"We just wanted it," said Butler, a Central Michigan commit who dished out 25 assists and added 9 digs. "We were like, 'This (might be) our last game. We got to give it our all.' "

Cate Halverson served the final four points of the match, which she ended with her team-leading eighth kill. Lake Forest committed 5 service errors (four players) in the final set.

"Carmel came ready to play," Lake Forest coach Molly Grzesik said. "They really started picking us apart. They picked apart our weaknesses."

Taylor added 7 kills for Carmel, while Taylor Luhr and Allie Wayland each had six. Luhr and Halverson posted 3 and 2 blocks, respectively. Pazely said playing in the East Suburban Catholic, which he called the toughest conference in the state, helped prepare his team for Lake Forest. The coach also credited the leadership of his 10 seniors.

"Our team has been struggling to find consistency," Pazely said. "Our last two practices, it's like everything has been clicking. It showed when we played on Tuesday against (Grayslake) Central (25-17, 25-13 win)."

"In the (previous matches against Lake Forest), once we lost the first (set), we'd kind of give up," Tworek said. "But this time we were like, 'No. Not this time. We're going to push it as hard as we can.' "