Girls volleyball: IC Catholic Prep can't disrupt Harvest Christian run
The Harvest Christian Academy girls volleyball program is on quite the run.
In existence for just eight years, the Lions have captured eight consecutive sectional titles after Wednesday's 25-12, 25-18 victory over IC Catholic Prep.
Advancing through the Class 2A Guerin sectional, Harvest Christian (26-12) finds itself just one win away from a return trip to state. The Lions will play Galena in the Oregon supersectional on Friday.
"We feel a lot of pressure," said setter Kaitlin Murray, only one of three seniors on the roster. "We've won so many in past years, you feel like you have to win it. But being on the court is so exciting. I love playing for this school and this team.
"We really wanted this. We came in with a lot of confidence that we would play as hard as we could to win."
In each of the games, the Knights (22-14) overcame an early deficit to take an 11-10 lead. But in each instance, Harvest Christian quickly recovered.
In the opener the Lions scored the final 8 points and 15 of the last 16.
In Game 2 they rattled off 8 of the final 9 points, ending the match on a kill by Madison Pfister. The junior had a game-high 10 kills to go along with 13 digs and 3 blocks.
"A lot of it was our fans and our teamwork," Pfister said. "We have an amazing setter and she does so well adapting to all of us. All of the girls worked as hard as they could. This match was the one we were worried about. Now we are excited to see how far we can go and hopefully get back to state."
Serving was a deciding factor - Harvest Christian produced 8 aces, 3 from Zoe Pawelek, which helped break a 17-17 tie in the second game.
"We had a tough time on serve-receive today," said ICCP coach Nancy D'Amore, whose team had just two seniors. "When you can't run your offense, it's hard to execute. The little things we normally do well just weren't there tonight. That's hard to take, that is our bread and butter.
"But the future looks very bright. Being as young as they are, there were times I looked out and we didn't have a senior on the court. The more time they spend on the court together, the more confidence they will have."
Jess Sobon topped ICCP with 8 kills, and senior Maya Stovall finished with 7. Freshman Addison Nava added 6 kills for Harvest Academy and Jimena Montano had 5 kills and 6 blocks.
"We knew they were a great team and would make runs," Harvest Christian coach Mike Bui said. "I've seen them where they were down 8, 9 points and came back to win. We knew we had to stay under control and control the tempo. And our serving was phenomenal, we only missed two serves."