Lancers stage a comeback, but fall short in D4 state title match

BATTLE CREEK » After the opening two sets of the Division 4 state final, it would have been hard to imagine that Auburn Hills Oakland Christian would find itself within two points of winning the match.

The Lancers looked in over their heads over the first two games, scoring just a combined 23 points. But, something shifted dramatically over the remainder of the match.

Oakland Christian showed the championship grit it had displayed all season and ultimately took Battle Creek St. Philip to five sets. The Lancers would fight off two championship points, but couldn’t fight off a third as the Tigers won their 21st state championship as a program, 25-8, 2515, 22-25, 22-25, 17-15.

“I knew this weekend was going to be a roller coaster. All I kept telling the girls was, ‘stay in it, stay in it, stay in it,’” Oakland Christian coach Brian Theut said. “The thing that we have been talking about is control our side. I didn’t want them to go down like this. We went through a lot of stuff this year. This isn’t how we were going to end it. (Saturday), what was that final chapter going to be in this book that we wrote this year. I knew our seniors deserved a better way out. I just kept telling them to hang in there.”

The Lancers couldn’t

asked for a worst start, as the Fighting Tigers scored the first three points of the match and were off and running from there.

With the score at 10-7 in favor of St. Philip, the Tigers would rally off 12 consecutive points off the serve of Rylee Altman to take a 22-7 advantage. Seven of the 12

points in the rally were off Oakland Christian attack errors.

The second set was more of the same, as Oakland Christian looked a little shellshocked. St. Philip established a 7-1 lead in the set and never looked back.

In the third set, Oakland Christian showed the fight that got it to Battle Creek. The Lancers scored the first four points of the frame off the serving of Riley Sparre and a pair of kills from

Anna Frazee.

The set would be tied nine times before Oakland Christian took the lead for good on a Sparre kill to make it 20-19. The Lancers scored seven of the last 10 points to take the set.

“That third game I just knew that if we could get one, get a couple of points in a row, I knew we had it,” Theut said.

The fourth set would be tied on eight occasions before the Lancers created

some distance. Kaylee Page had a kill to make it 20-19 and then a pair of St. Philip errors put the score at 22-19. Kylie Morga would eventually finish the set with a kill to force a fifth.

The final set was tight throughout and tied on 12 occasions. Oakland Christian held its biggest lead at 7-5 following a kill from Morga.

St. Philip would battle back and take a 13-11 lead, but the Lancers responded with the next two points.