Lehi Sports
Lehi volleyball 3rd at State
The Lehi boys volleyball team completed a stunning turnaround of their fortunes from last season by beating Region 3 champion Westlake 2-1 on Saturday (May 10) afternoon to claim third place overall in the Class 6A tournament.
Last year in the sport’s inaugural season, the Pioneers competed hard but couldn’t quite get over the hump in most of their matches. They finished tied for last place in Region 3 with a 2-8 mark and a 4-15 overall record at the end of the regular season.
Both of those league wins came in the final two weeks of competition,so the team was coming on. Lehi was seeded No. 16 out of 18 teams in last year’s final state RPI rankings. The Pioneers were matched against the No. 17 team in the first round and swept to victory, butthen had to face No. 1 Herriman.
They won a set in each match but were eliminated by losses to the Mustangs and No. 8 Davis in the playoffs, finishing at 5-17.
This year was a different story. After a tight early loss to 5A No. 1 Maple Mountain in a tournament, Lehi earned a string of 10 straight victories before dropping a marathon heartbreaker to the Thunder in their first-round matchup in league play.
The second contest also went to five sets, but Westlake prevailed again. The Thunder were undefeated in the league season and were ranked No. 2 entering the tournament with a 22-5 overall record.
The Pioneers had a bye in the first round and easily disposed of No. 13 Pleasant Grove 3-0 to start the playoffs. In the quarterfinals, they faced off against No. 5 Herriman and avenged last year’s loss with a 3-1 triumph.
That brought on No. 1 Bingham (then 23-4) in the semifinal. The Miners won the first set, but the Pioneers really battled in the second game in a back-and-forth affair that was tied many times and in which neither team ever led by more than two points.
Lehi was ahead 22-21 when senior Taite Stewart, the towering middle blocker, dislocated his kneecap and had to withdraw from the match. Play resumed after a very long delay to deal with the injury.
The Miners took a time out after the Pioneers were at match point with a 24-23 advantage. Bingham won the next two points but Lehi rallied to tie at 25 and force extra time for a decision.
For the next point, the Miners dug two good kill attempts and then got a tipover by the edge of the net. They made a sideline kill to win the set 27-25. The third game was hotly contested as well but Bingham prevailed 25-22 to send Lehi to the third-place match against their league nemesis.
The Pioneers made a good start against the Thunder and won the first set 25-21. Westlake then earned a 26-24 win in the second game to bring on the tiebreaker. The action went back and forth for a while, but Lehi began to pull away when the scores hit the teens and ended up winning handily 25-18.
The Pioneers finished at 19-5, a 14-game improvement and complete flip from last season. “I’m very proud of the boys,” said Coach Kolby Shewell. “We came into the season as an unknown, but we quickly made our mark and put Lehi boys volleyball on the map.
“We competed with the top teams in the state. I saw improvement from every single player throughout the season. I’m very pleased with how the season went,” he concluded.
For more details on the end of the regular season and all the playoff action, check out the May 15 issue of the Lehi Free Press.
