OCR Text |
Show Pleasant Grove Review - Thursday, November 11, 2004 - Page 6 Sports editor BhlkyBea 756.527' Sports Vikings open with sweep of Cyprus By Dean Von Memmott The Pleasant Grove volleyball vol-leyball team overturned Cyprus 25-18, 25-17, 25-14 in the first round of the state tournament Friday afternoon. A Kortney Robinson kill put the Vikings on the board first, but the Pirates snatched a 2-1 lead. A seesaw see-saw battle seemed to be in progress. Once the Vikings tied the score at 2-2, a Jalynn Thornton ace put them ahead. Further Thornton jump serves resulted in a 6-2 lead for Pleasant Grove, but Cyprus refused to be pushed deeper into the hole. Led by Katrina Mesi, Caris- sa Brown and Alyson Wolf- gramm, the Pirates tied the game at six. Pulling ahead 7-6 on a missed Pirate serve, the Vikings went on a 6-1 scoring scor-ing run, fueled by kills from Hailey Jeppson, Robinson 4 : ,,, Y"- i.'S .i.JL-1 Viking Tela Burnett gets a block past American Fork in Friday evening's contest. Vikes end Murray streak By Dean Von Memmott The Pleasant Grove volleyball vol-leyball team had to fight for it, but the Vikings eventually eventual-ly got past Murray, an unbeaten team that was enjoying a No. 1 ranking in the state, in the semifinals on Saturday. The Vikings lost the first game to the Spartans, but came back for a 21-25, 25-20, 25-20, 29-27, 25-18 victory. Coach Mike Daniel explained his strategy prior to the start of the contest. "We've watched Murray play. They rely on a big hitter hit-ter Lori Baird. We want to shut her down." Murray took a 1-0 lead in the match's first game. Two straight Kortney Robinson kills gave the Vikings a 2-1 lead. With Baird guiding the Spartan front row, the lead frequently traded hands. Once the Spartans broke 5-5 tie, they maintained main-tained a strong grip on a narrow lead. Pleasant Grove pulled within 8-9, but hitting from Baird, Katie Lowe and Mindy Schvaneveldt frustrated frus-trated Viking attempts to knot the score. That was particularly true when a Robinson kill had cut the score to 20-23. A Baird kill pushed back the Vikings' comeback efforts. Baird ended the game by punching a shot into a front-row hole. Spartan hitting errors permitted the Vikings to and Tela Burnett. Mesi and Wolfgramm's hitting guided the Pirates within 11-14, but they couldn't get any closer than three points in the game. The Vikings won it on a missed Pirate serve. For the second game, a Jeppson kill sent Pleasant Grove rolling out to a 4-1 lead. The Pirates trimmed it to 3-4. Before Cyprus could tie the score, Thornton Thorn-ton delivered a short series of jump serves that help Pleasant Grove build up a 12-5 lead on kills registered by Robinson. The Pirates didn't let the Vikings pull away. Wolf-gramm Wolf-gramm guided Cyprus within 10-12 and 11-13. At that point, the Vikings went on a 5-0 scoring run that gave them firm control of the momentum and propelled pro-pelled them to the win. Cyprus took a 2-0 lead in the third game, but the Pirate lead didn't last for ft i . 7 ft secure a 3-1 lead in the second sec-ond game. Hailey Barner's hitting became quite challenging chal-lenging for Baird and Brittany Brit-tany Parker through the course of the game. Daniel said, "Barner is our ace in the hole. She's just a sophomore. She was 6 for 10 in kills tonight. She has always had six-on-six scrimmages at practice. She started blocking their No. 7 Baird well." Though Murray pulled ahead 5-4, the Spartans couldn't maintain the lead permanently this time. After Murray had improved the margin to 11-6, a Thornton Thorn-ton ace sparked a comeback for the Vikings. They tied the score at 16 and 17 before finally pulling back out in front. After a Breanne Winger tip had put the Vikings ahead 18-17, they took firm control of the tempo. Murray Mur-ray still pulled within 20-23. 20-23. A Barner block set the stage for a game point. Pleasant Grove picked it up on a Wilson ace. Jeppson produced 10 kills while Thornton contributed con-tributed 9 kills and 5 aces. This set the Vikings up for a rematch of last year's championship cham-pionship final against the Lone Peak Knights, who had advanced after beating Provo in five games earlier in the day. This time, however, second-ranked Pleasant Grove was the favorite. long. A Jeppson kill tied the game at 2, and the Vikings then blew ahead 6-2. Cyprus got within 4-6, but a Burnett kill sparked an 8-1 scoring run that dazed the Pirates for the rest of the game. Thrice, the Viking lead grew as wide as 11 points. Pleasant Grove's third 11-point 11-point lead occurred when Burnett registered a kill to score the match point. Viking coach Mike Daniel said, "Jalynn Thornton Thorn-ton had nine aces, and we had other strong serving. It was a decent first-round game for us." He added that Robinson had 7 kills, Jeppson 6, Whitney Whit-ney Mendivil 4 and Burnett 3. Allyce Wilson contributed 17 assists and Janae Mortensen 13. Daniel said, "Our best passers were Hailey Hai-ley Jeppson and Allyce Wilson. Wil-son. Breanne Winger was our MVP for our match against Cyprus." V . ' v: V- v v . v v I - iz The Pleasant Grove cheer fan support was as strong GT)( . v. Pleasant Grove's Hailey Jeppson digs a ball in the American Fork match. Spikers move past Cavemen By Dean Von Memmott The Pleasant Grove volleyball vol-leyball team defeated American Fork 25-19, 25-12, 25-12, 25-15 during state quarterfinal quar-terfinal action on Friday evening. The Vikings opened by taking a 1-0 lead on a missed Caveman serve. American Fork promptly tied the game at 1 on a Lin- sey Lesser kill, then rolled ahead 4-1. The Vikings quickly got the message that American Fork was going to be no Cyprus. Wnitney Mendivil and Kortney Robinson orchestrated orches-trated a strong Viking effort to retake the momentum. Even though the Vikings did pull ahead 7-5, they still encountered stern resistance resist-ance from Alisha King, Jenna Toone, Shantell Dur-rant Dur-rant and Elise DeWitt. Blocks by DeWitt and Lesser gave American Fork leads of 15-14 and 16-15. As soon as the Vikings tied the game at 16, they squad gets the crowd stirred up during a timeout in the championship contest. The , as ever during the playoffs, and eclipsed that of any otheteSm at the tournament. 'i i i ' ... t - r- took control of the tempo. While they stayed narrowly ahead, Durrant gave them further headaches. After she guided American Ameri-can Fork within 19-20, Pleasant Grove's chances of winning the game looked questionable. However, a Robinson kill empowered the Vikings to take firm control of the contest. con-test. Three Breanne Winger kills quickly propelled Pleasant Grove to the win. In the second game, Wilson Wil-son guided the Vikings out to a 4-0 lead before American Ameri-can Fork could put together an effective defense. Game 2 went down as a grand display of the Vikings' offense. After the score read 10-3, Pleasant Grove, Toone stirred up a rally. American Fork moved within 10-16. At that point, Viking Hailey Barner joined the action on the front row. A sophomore, Barner held her own against Toone ... .... . . ' JJ- ' ; ; . ".I, ; - . ' '. t 4 V. and Durrant. So did Me divil. Daniel said, "Whitni had five kills, and she 1 about 80 percent." ; Allyce Wilson ca tributed some blocks as 4 Vikings created anoth double-digit lead. A Robi son kill won the game. ! The third game openh with a Tela Burnett k" sending the Vikings outt: 3-0 lead. Two Durrant h' quickly caused the gamer-be gamer-be tied at 3. American Fork secur leads of 5-4, 6-5 and 8-7,h the Cavemen couldn't st in firm control of ti momentum. Once 1 Vikings pulled ahead 9 ' they never trailed again the game. Daniel complimenti American Fork. The coa said, "AF had a nice bloc and they're a solid team The quarterfinal moved Pleasant Grove in Srove '.ship a semifinal showdown wr top-ranked and undefeatj Murray. 1 1 1 r'v . KentW S' Photos by Vikin, i |