Still atop the throne of Class 2A
Defenders capture 2nd straight title
Fittingly, Lake Worth Christian lived up to its mascot’s name and successfully defended the Class 2A state volleyball championship with a 29-27, 25-17 and 25-9 win over St. John Paul II (Tallahassee) at the Sun coast Credit Union Arena in Fort Myers on Saturday.
The Defenders (18-2) won their seventh straight match and their second consecutive state championship. It was also the fifth in school history.
It was also the firstever meeting between the two schools. The win also snapped a 10-match winning streak for the Panthers (13-8).
In picking up her 714th career win, Lake Worth Christian coach Terri Kaiser said her team shook off some early, uncharacteristic nerves.
“It was a good match,” Kaiser said. “We had a little more nerves than I thought we would have. It took us a little bit to get started and we kind of let them back in the game, but it was good. We dominated the middle today. I couldn’t be happier.”
Being able to have a season this year was something Kaiser hoped for although early in the season she cautioned her team that COVID could win out and end the season prematurely as it did for the spring sports last year.
“Given the circumstances, we were happy with winning a state championship again ,” Kaiser said. “We normally play 30 games a season and we finished with 20, so a third of the matches. Quite a few matches got canceled, got changed, got moved, or got postponed. We didn’t play our first game until September.
“Therewas a lot of uncertainty,” she added. “The administration atthe school, the other coaches… everyone contributed to this. Our school took the position that we were going to
play. We kind of set the standard and other teams could follow. All things considered we won a state championship in a COVID year when other teams didn’t even get an opportunity to play or weren’ t allowed to compete .”
Junior outside hitter Kelly Franklin said it was nice to win back-to-back titles. Last year, she won with sister, Sarah, who is now a freshman at Michigan State. Franklin said playing with her sister was memorable, but doing it after she graduated was also memorable.
“Winning this means a lot, that we were able to step up and push through adversity ,” said Franklin, who finished with 15 kills. “We were able to focus on our play and not what was going on around us. It was really exciting to do a back-to-back state championship. We were almost in shock that we did it again.”
“When they were creeping back into it, we got a little nervous, but we all settled down and we were able to play our game,” Franklin added. “We played relaxed and confident andwe knew that we have comeback from points down before and we could do it again. When we stepped on the court we were hungry to win again.”
Junior Karly Horn (10 digs), sophomore Abby Toeniskoetter (10 kills), junior Emily Caputo (12 kills), junior Lexi Jacobs (7 kills), senior Parker Folino (16 assists) and freshman Sofia Aguilera (22 assists) also filled the stat sheet.