The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
DUKES PICK UP BIG WIN OVER RAIDERS
Wellington improves to 3-0 in LCC competition
The Wellington Dukes continued their early-season success with an impressive 3-0 win Sept. 7 over rival Columbia on the Raiders’ home floor.
The Dukes won close games in the first and third sets and blasted the Raiders in the second set. The final scores: 25-23, 25-11 and 25-12 added up to a Wellington win.
The Dukes got a big night out of the dynamic and dominant Lehmkuhl sisters; Morgan, a 6-foot junior outside hitter, and her sister, 6-foot freshman and middle hitter Brooke.
Morgan smashes the ball on the outside while Brooke controls the net.
The freshman’s signature move is a two-hand block in which she goes straight up along the net, blocks the ball with two hands, and in the same motion sends it speeding to the ground for a Wellington point.
Morgan Lehmkuhl started the game quickly. Her block/kill gave her team an early 2-0 lead in the first set of the evening and set the tone that Wellington’s big front line would be a problem all night for Columbia.
Morgan got her game going a little later on in the set, as she rang up a spree of kills spurring Wellington to the win in the set and then the match.
The win by Dukes snapped a six-match losing streak to the Raiders and they improved to 5-2 overall.
“It was incredible how we came out and played. We definitely are changing things around in Wellington. Keeping the energy and intensity up, I’m so proud of how we did tonight. It was just amazing,” Morgan said after the match.
Winning the first game was huge, Morgan said.
“It gave us a boost in our confidence and it gave us the upper hand,” Morgan said.
The older sister loves playing with her younger one. No sibling rivalry here, apparently.
“She’s an incredible player. She keeps me hyped up there and it’s just awesome playing with her. And she’s really a powerhouse at the net,” Morgan said in breaking down playing with her sister as well as her sister’s game.
Wellington improved to 3-0 in the Lorain County League while Columbia fell to 2-1.
Gabby Miller, another big middle hitter for the Dukes, had a massive game at the net, too. Lindsey Gott played well along the backline and set up the Dukes’ big-hitting front line all night.
Raider coach Kelsey Geanuracos said too many unforced errors led to the malfunctioning of her offense.
“We’re a pretty young squad right now and I think we are going to have those moments where we see our youth and I think that was a game of mental errors tonight,” Geanuracos said.
The Raiders entered the game perfect in the conference and had not lost the first set all year. They did not react to the first-set loss on this night, Geanuracos noted.
“I think we struggled with how do we come back from that,” Geanuracos said.
The Raiders completely unraveled in set No. 2 falling behind 12-4 early and never recovering.
They did make things interesting in the third set.
They trailed 22-16 but closed the gap to just one (22-21) before giving up the final four points of the contest.
So that was a bright spot for the Raiders.
“I was really proud of them in the third set. They started to battle. But, like I said, it just looked like we had some mental errors tonight. We didn’t even give our skill a chance to shine,” Geanuracos said.
Instead, it was Wellington and the Lehmkuhls making the statement that they are a force to be reckoned with. And that was something that Geanuracos saw coming.
“Morgan…I remember watching her in JO (Junior Olympics) as an eighthgrader and going that girl is going to be a stud. She’s a talented kid,” Geanuracos said.