Raiders finish strong, defeat Fremont St. Joseph

FREMONT — During a timeout in Game 4, Lakota junior Brianna Ray told her team: “this is our game (and) we deserve to win this.”

Her teammates responded well.

The Raiders finished Game 4 strong and defeated Fremont St. Joseph on Thursday, 25-19, 25-22, 14-25, 25-22 in Sandusky River League action.

“We came out firing on all cylinders,” Lakota coach Sarah Dussel said. “We fought back in Game 2 and had a bit of a letdown in Game 3. Last year, if we would’ve gotten in that situation, we would’ve fallen apart.”

Lakota (2-1 overall, 1-0 SRL) took Game 1 comfortably behind the strong hitting of Aspen Ray and Bree Long-Meyer.

“Bree had a heck of a match,” said Dussel. “Props to St. Joe. They had a scrappy defense that was challenging.”

Game 2 was much closer; the Crimson Streaks opened a three-point lead halfway through the game and maintained that margin when a net violation put SJCC (2-2, 0-1) ahead 21-18. The Raiders responded with seven of the next eight points to take a 2-0 lead.

St. Joe dominated the third game, and a kill by Karleigh Kirsch cut the Lakota lead in half.

“Game 3, we thought, would be a big changing point,” SJCC coach Rachel Fitzwater said. “We did what we needed to do in that game to win, and we thought it would carry momentum into Game 4.”

Game 4 was a back-and-forth affair. The game was tied 20-20 before an error by St. Joe prompted a timeout from Fitzwater. That’s when Brianna Ray (32 digs) pumped her team up.

Lakota took a 23-20 lead out of the timeout before an error by the Raiders and a kill by Makenzie Reiter cut the lead to 23-22. That’s when Long-Meyer did what she does best: She recorded two of her 20 kills to give Lakota the win.

“Lakota was scrappy,” Fitzwater said. “They didn’t seem to let any balls drop. We adjusted to what they were doing to finally get some balls down and give it a fight.”

Long-Meyer added 25 digs, while Alexis Kirkpatrick recorded 12 kills. Aspen Ray, who battled illness attributed to the heat in the gymnasium, had nine kills; Faith Biddle tallied 14 digs; and Aubrey Bickford totaled 30 assists.

“We told the girls not to worry after the third game,” Dussel said. “We felt like we gave them Game 3. We don’t want to take anything away from St. Joe, but we made eight hitting errors in the game. We felt like if cleaned those up, we would be fine and we were.”

Reiter had 15 kills, four aces, and four blocks while Adrienne Wehring had eight kills and four blocks. Ava Stepanic recorded 27 digs, Blair Wonderland had 19 digs, Natalie Zyski nabbed 16 digs, and Brooke Casperson tallied 21 assists.

“We feel confident moving forward,” Fitzwater said. “We have a good group of girls. We have 14 girls on varsity that can come in at any time and keep the girls on the floor fresh.”