D4: Everest sweeps No. 6 Marlette for first semifinal berth
FENTON >> The Clarkston Everest Collegiate Mountaineers provided a mountain too tall for the Marlette Red Raiders to climb Tuesday night, and the Mountaineers won the Division 4 quarterfinal in straight sets 2517, 25-18, and 25-19.
Everest now advances to Kellogg Arena in Battle Creek for the first time in program history, a place even Everest head coach Danielle Walker wasn’t thinking about when she took over the program this summer.
“Honestly, I was just so happy to have the job at Everest, to be coach. I knew the girls were a great group of girls. But this is amazing, to make it this far,” Walker said.
Everest started off struggling with their setting and the Red Raiders maintained the lead early in the first set. But trailing 11-6, the Mountaineers started setting better, the big hitters started pounding balls into the court, and Everest got rolling downhill, unleashing a 12-4 run to take the lead 18-15. The Mountaineers would close out the game 25-17.
“We were a little slow to start. We just kept reminding ourselves to stay focused, play one point at a time, and keep moving forward. Don’t look back,” Walker said. “I think our team does well with teamwork and trusting each other and having faith in the team and the bench.”
After trailing very briefly 1-0 in set two, Everest would quickly go on a run to open up a 6-1 lead and firmly put the Red Raiders in the rear view mirror as they would never trail after that in either set two or set three.
Marlette would make a run from time to time, but every time they made a run one of the Mountaineers’ big hitters would hammer a ball down or one of their servers would get on a run and the Mountaineers would stem the tide of Marlette’s comeback.
Sarah Bradley led everyone with 15 kills on the night while
Madelyne Krappmann added 12 kills and Addison Pearce had seven kills, and the Mountaineers had at least one service run of four or more points on the serves of Bradley, Samantha Pietras, and Emmerson Phyle as they found their groove and fought through their occasional droughts.
The Mountaineers will face top-ranked Adrian Lenawee Christian in Friday’s semifinal, a team that Everest has a little familiarity with, as they scrimmaged with them back in August.
Lenawee Christian will bring a 46-5-1 record into the match.
“We did scrimmage them at the beginning of the season. I know they were missing some of their key players,” Walker said. “We beat them in two sets at the beginning, but a lot has changed.
“I’m sure they’ve gotten their star player back.
“And they’ve improved, and we’ve improved, so we’ll see.”