Bountiful • A heady week lies ahead for the Lone Peak volleyball team, with a trip to Las Vegas to play Bishop Gorman on Thursday as a prelude to competition one day later in a Durango, Colo., tournament steeped in quality opponents.
But first, this little matter of playing the top-ranked Class 5A team in Utah.Lone Peak paid a visit to Bountiful on Tuesday in a match between defending state champs, and the Knights had to throw their volleyball machine into another gear to pull out a victory.
The visiting team, after winning the first set, dropped the second and trailed 23-21 late in the third. But Lone Peak, No. 1 in Class 6A, rallied in that set and ended up taking a 25-20, 18-25, 25-23, 25-21 victory over the Bountiful Braves.
“It definitely was not what we expected, but at the end we had pulled ourselves out,” Lone Peak setter Jacquelyn Langhaim said. “I feel like that was the most important thing.
“We had to get something out of us that was hard to get,” she added. “We didn’t have the right mind-focus.”
Late in the third set, about to go down 2-1, Lone Peak (5-0) had to right itself quickly.A long dig by Bountiful (4-1) set the table for a kill by Knights’ middle Kennedi Boyd.
On the next point, a missed kill attempt by the Braves made the score 23-23. Another kill by Boyd — who finished with eight kills and three blocks — was followed by an ace by Emma Ricks to close out the set.
Now with a set advantage, Lone Peak burst out in the fourth set to a 15-7 lead by registering a 10-3 run. The Braves closed to within three points late, but a kill by Tasia Farmer closed out the match.
Farmer scored 21 kills to lead all players while fellow outside Madi Robinson, a BYU recruit, tallied 18 kills.
But it was a struggle at times for the Knights.
“We had 31 hitting errors. He haven’t had 31 errors combined all season long,” Lone Peak coach Reed Carlson said. “That was a bad night for us. I feel like we lost.“I just think we came in not playing our best volleyball. I don’t know if it’s the conditions — it’s really hot in here, maybe some of our kids were a little bit bothered by it,” he added. “But that shouldn’t effect us that much.”
Storylines<br>Tasia Farmer racked up 21 kills for Lone Peak while fellow outside hitter Madi Robinson scored 18 points with kill-shots.<br>The matchup was between the top-ranked teams in Class 6A and 5A and state championship squads from 2016.<br>Kaybrie Pe’a had 11 kills for Bountiful while her sister Brook and Baylee Mittelstaedt added nine winners apiece.
Bountiful was paced by the Pe’a twins as outside hitter Kaybrie Pe’a had 11 kills and opposite-side hitter had nine kills and three blocks. Outside Baylee Mittelstaedt also had nine put-aways for the host team.
Braves coach Sarah Chism was perhaps happier in defeat that the winning coach was in triumph.
“You know, that’s a really good team. Player for player, they [the Knights] should win,” Chism said. “I’m so proud of our team and how we fought and gave them trouble by being very, very smart. Normally, a Bountiful team can go up and fire away, but we knew we wouldn’t be able to do that tonight.”