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The562’s coverage of Lakewood Athletics is sponsored by J.P. Crawford, Class of 2013.
The Lakewood girls’ volleyball team has played every game of their CIF-SS Division 5 playoff run like it’s their last—especially when it goes to five.
Fresh off of their reverse sweep a few days prior, the Lancers remained unfazed even after a lopsided loss in the first set to visiting La Salle on Wednesday. Lakewood stayed composed in front of their home crowd to come back and beat La Salle in five, 10-25, 25-22, 25-21, 18-25, 15-10.
The third round win puts the Lancers amongst the final four teams in the Division 5 bracket, and Lakewood will host their semi finals matchup against Corona on Saturday at 6pm.
“The word I’ve been telling these girls all year is ‘grit’,” said first-year coach Adam Wadley. “They’ve needed to have grit. The playoffs aren’t gonna be easy so we have to make sure we’re grinding out points. It’s not gonna be pretty all the time, sometimes it’s gonna be ugly, but we’ve just had to make sure we’re paying hard every point.”
“This means everything,” added senior Lala Hall. “I’ve never experienced going to the playoffs this far and having it my senior year is amazing. It’s amazing to be able to experience it with this group of girls too and this coaching staff that we have with us this year.”
After a harsh 10-25 opening set for Lakewood, Wadley said his team was able to keep their head in the game after seeing themselves make a comeback earlier in the week on Monday. After the game, Wadley said that it was all about getting back to the fundamentals in order for his Lancers to get back on track.
“(La Salle) matched up pretty well with us and their outsides were pretty good,” he said. “It was all about just moving onto the next play. We had to just serve and pass better and play good defense which has been our backbone all year, just serving and passing.”
A lot of those passes went to Hall, who finished her night with a game-high 13 kills. Hall also threw in a team-high 16 digs, and earned her team a couple huge points with the game on the line in the fifth set.
“I really like the pressure and I feel like it just makes me play better,” said the Fresno commit of the fifth set. “I feel like without the pressure I’m not getting pushed as much to play well. I just feel like the energy stemmed from (the crowd), when they bring the energy it comes down to all of us on the court.”
“Give her the ball and she’ll do work and you saw that in the fifth set. She had three swings and got two kills out of them, so it’s definitely good company to have her on the outside.”
Alongside Hall was fellow outside hitter Alizae Leilua with eight kills, while middle blockers Aaryn Hunter and Jenna Smith both finished with five. Setter Carly Bercero also chipped in 18 assists while Joleen Ong added 12.
In his first year coaching the team after taking over for his father, Wadley says the familiarity of Lakewood volleyball has made it easier to settle in and find success in the playoffs. He and his team will look to keep things going in the semi finals at home against Corona on Saturday at 6pm.
“It feels great, it’s great having (my dad) as a comfort blanket on the sideline. I have all these coaches on my sideline that I’ve known for 10+ plus years so it’s really a family. We’ve told these girls that we have to grind out these playoff matches and I’m really glad with how we’ve been playing.”
