<\/p>\n
The no. 4 Wilson Bruins and the no. 9 Lakewood Lancers are both hoping for a deep playoff run this season, and even though it was the league opener it felt like a CIF semifinal match in the Lakewood gym on Tuesday, with a packed and boisterous crowd on hand for the Lancers’ five-set victory, 19-25, 25-20, 27-25, 22-25, 15-10.\u00a0 <\/span>Because of the CIF rankings, mark it a minor upset, but after the way they played down the stretch, it’s hard to see the Lancers being underdogs in many matches this year.\u00a0 <\/span>With the win over their rival, Lakewood starts the league schedule 1-0.\u00a0 <\/span>“It means a lot to us,” said Lakewood senior captain Jazmine Orozco.\u00a0 <\/span>“The seniors have never beaten them at home.”<\/p>\n At first it didn’t look like things would go Lakewood’s way, as Wilson exploded out of the gate in the first set, turning their disadvantage at the net into a huge advantage, as they notched five points on the block.\u00a0 <\/span>The Lancers’ greatest strength is their middles, which was Wilson’s biggest question mark headed into the opener\u2014but by keeping the tempo up and the block together, they limited Orozco to just two kills, and generally frustrated Lakewood en route to the opening winner. The second set was a bounce-back for Lakewood, as the Lancers adjusted to take away the cut shot from Wilson, and used their power, as Tyler Jackson and Orozco pushed the Lancers to the win.\u00a0 <\/span>The third set was the swing, as it so often is in close volleyball contests, and it was a doozy.\u00a0 <\/span>Wilson’s Kellie Culbertson and sophomore Rebecca Strehlow played out of their minds, but it was obvious the Bruins were pressing too hard, allowing an ace and committing three hitting errors on the way to a 10-11 deficit.\u00a0 <\/span>Then, they gave way and Orozco and Chrissy Tuua led the Lancers on a 5-0 run to give Lakewood a 16-10 lead.\u00a0 <\/span> After they broke, leadership took over on the Wilson side, as the senior captain Culbertson and the young, multi-talented Strehlow took over, leading Wilson on an 11-1 run that seemed like it should have cinched the game.\u00a0 <\/span>But Lakewood battled back to tie it at 21, and despite going down 24-23 and 25-24, took the set’s final three points to seal it.\u00a0 <\/span>The Bruins managed to mount a comeback in the fourth, led by Culbertson, Strehlow and co-captain Kellie Woolever, setting up the fifth, as large student sections for both teams screamed themselves hoarse in the humid, packed gym. Unfortunately, the experience difference reared its ugly head in the fifth set, as Lakewood jumped out to a 5-1 lead and didn’t look back.\u00a0 <\/span>Wilson’s two greatest weapons\u2014Culbertson’s power and Strehlow’s crafty push-shots\u2014were both effectively neutralized, and the Bruins committed 6 errors and allowed one ace (to Orozco) in the final frame.\u00a0 <\/span>“I think we got careful in the fifth set,” said Wilson coach Susan Pescar afterward.\u00a0 <\/span>“But to play that well against that level of competition in just our second match is definitely very encouraging.”\u00a0 <\/span>The Bruins got a lot of production out of their returners (Culbertson finished with a career-high 27 kills and one block, Woolever had 27 assists, 12 kills and 6 blocks) and perhaps more than even they expected from some of the newer faces (Strehlow, the setter, finished with 13 assists, 17 kills, 7 blocks, and 2 aces).\u00a0 <\/span>The Bruins have a bye on Thursday before they (and Lakewood and Poly) head to the enormous Durango tournament in Las Vegas this weekend. For Lakewood, the expected leaders stepped up, as Orozco, Hollins, and Jackson did it all, along with a huge contribution from sophomore Chrissy Tuua.\u00a0 <\/span>And while Orozco said it means a lot to beat Wilson early, Lakewood coach Mike Wadley’s just happy to have gotten off on the right foot.\u00a0 <\/span>“You want to go in 1-0,” he said, “Regardless of who you’re playing.” With both coaches minimizing the importance of the win\/loss, it’s obvious these two nationally ranked programs still have their sights set on titles\u2014and not just the League kind.\u00a0 <\/span>But thanks to the quality of the Lancers and Bruins, as well as Poly, the Moore League title tilt may end up being almost as compelling as the state race. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" These two teams are both hoping for a deep playoff run, and it already felt like a CIF semifinal on Tuesday in the Moore League opener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}