With a three-set victory over Living Word Lutheran on Thursday and a five-set win over Dominican Saturday night, the Lightning girls volleyball team was crowned regional champions another year. Following the success of last year’s talented state runner-up team, the 2022 LCL volleyball squad is looking to make a similar deep playoff run.
Their next matchup will be a home one again, as the #1 Lightning face the #2 Shoreland Lutheran Pacers Thursday night to decide who will advance to the sectional finals and face either Howards Grove or Oostburg.
The Lightning ladies were able to take down the Timberwolves with relative ease last week, winning their three sets 25-22, 25-9, and 25-16. Senior Rachel Rossing assisted 27 times and served three aces, sophomore Karli Molnau boasted 13 kills, and juniors Morgan O’Keefe and Ellie Schumacher added 7 and 8, respectively.
“I think in a lot of conference games we get away with [relaxing], but we need to take a step back and realize we had to fight for our spot as we continue on the road to state.” shared senior Madi Burmeister, speaking of the unchallenging conference opponents the Lightning have often faced, one of them being Living Word.
LCL’s victory over the Timberwolves sent them on to the regional championship, where they faced a #5-seed Dominican team fresh off an upset over Kenosha Christian Life. The Knights put up an intense battle with the Lightning, taking them all the way to the last points of five sets (25-15, 25-21, 16-21, 15-25, 17-15 LCL victory).
“We pushed hard in the first two sets, then our playing wasn’t our best in the third and fourth…next time we need to play strong the entire game and not let up.” said senior Hailey Foster of the incredibly tough joust against Dominican.
“I think the Dominican game we got comfortable with how we played and started relaxing.” added Burmeister. “We see how good of a team we are and from here on out we all plan to play every game at the high level we all know we can.”
Rossing assisted 35 times in five sets, Schumacher contributed 15 kills, and sophomore Ava Petersen received 24 serves Saturday night against Dominican.
“Going into the Shoreland game, we are all working hard in practice on the little things that will continue to make our side of the net as strong as possible. Our coaches each week have watched the other teams and we know their weaknesses, which we really work on using to our advantage. We also work on the strong things…” Burmeister detailed about the upcoming week.
While the Lightning are certainly not lacking in talent, they are working hard in this week’s practices to ensure they can outperform their also-talented opponent while not getting too comfortable at the same time. Shoreland Lutheran, being a #2 seed, is certainly a team that requires preparation for playing against, but the LCL team is still confident in their abilities.
Added Foster, “Thursday is looking good. We’re all excited to execute, and if we play our best and focus on playing faster, we should be able to win.”