SWANTON — Lake volleyball inched one step closer to its first regional appearance in program history, sweeping Rossford 25-11, 25-8, 25-6, in a Division II district semifinal at Swanton High School’s Kevin J. McQuade Gymnasium Tuesday.
To make history happen, the 19-6 Flyers will take on a familiar opponent, Otsego, also 19-6, at McQuade Gymnasium Thursday with first serve scheduled for 6 p.m.
Lake has already defeated Otsego on the Flyers’ way to winning a Northern Buckeye Conference crown this season, but the Knights put up a fight in the second encounter, taking the match to four sets.
“Otsego is absolutely going to be a fight,” Lake coach Amy Vorst said. “Our focus right now is the next match. We are not looking too far ahead but we definitely have to get it one match at a time and that is our goal.”
In Lake’s win over Rossford, senior outside hitter Taryn Dewese led the Flyers with 11 kills and 19 assists, senior OH Vayda Delventhal had 10 kills and 17 assists, and freshman middle hitter Mylah Vorst had eight kills.
Junior Sydney Brown had eight kills and junior Keira Magers and senior Maura Deutschman had four kills apiece for the Flyers.
The amazing thing is, despite Lake’s dominance, Rossford’s season ends at 10-14 and the fourth-seeded Bulldogs swept Wauseon to reach the tournament.
All four district qualifiers, including Maumee and Otsego, are members of the NBC. Including Eastwood (D-III) and Oak Harbor (another D-II district), six of eight NBC teams reached the district tournament.
“I think it is awesome,” Vorst said. “It’s incredible — a testament to the NBC and that we are here as a league and we are here to compete. I love that we are the top four seeds and we are the top four that made it.”
Rossford coach Joe Durco added, “I’m very proud of my girls, proud of my team. The NBC is a buzz-saw — it really is. You could see what we just went through. We played them three times. My hats off to them. They served us how they figured us out.”
Rossford got its best play from 5-foot-11 senior outside hitter Olivia Rust, who had six kills.
“She’s our weapon, she’s our go-to, just as Lake’s is Taryn,” Durco said.
Lake has been so dominant in its three tournament wins so far, sweeping every opponent and playing the minimum nine sets, that Dewese served 25 straight points in a 25-0 set win over Toledo Rogers to get to the district.
So, the challenge for Lake is staying focused as the competition becomes stronger.
“It’s really crazy,” Delventhal said. “The mindset early going into the season was win league first and make a pretty good run in the tournament, which we are doing right now, but we have to stay focused, work hard, and do what we know how to do and I think we can make it pretty far.
“We’ve been taking all of our work into practice,” Delventhal continued. “We know what kind of road we were facing in the tournament — it is going to be a pretty slow start (playing lower seeded teams), but we know it’s coming and we know we have to work hard and just focus on getting the work done early.”
Vorst says it is her job to make sure her players maintain their focus if they want to become the first team in school history to be playing in a regional volleyball tournament.
“The way we prepare is we compete everyday in practice. We have drills,” Vorst said. “Everything we do there is a winner and a loser. So we make sure that the kids are hungry.
“I think the kids are playing some of their best volleyball right now, which is what we want. I tell them all the time, ‘You have to be the aggressor and get after it,’ and that is what they did.”
When all is said and done, next year will see a lot of talented seniors leave the NBC, which makes Durco believe that the league could become more wide open.
“It’s going to be kind of exciting for next year,” Durco said. “There will be a lot of new faces. We are used to Taryn, we are used to Vayda, we are used to Olivia, we are used to Faith Keifer from Otsego.
“There’s going to be a turnover and it’s anybody’s call next year. I have to say I’ll give Eastwood the nod next year.”
Of course, just in case anyone has not noticed, Lake rostered and played five freshmen Tuesday, and Rossford started one freshman, so there is reloading going on already.
