GRETNA – Nothing that happened in the first three sets of the Eastern Midlands Conference championship match Thursday night at Gretna gave an indication of what was about to come in the fourth set.
After Gretna and Elkhorn tangled in three competitive sets, the top-seeded Dragons played pretty much flawless volleyball in exploding out to a 17-0 lead in the fourth set behind the serving of setter Cameron Scott and strong play at the net by Lauren Leapley. Gretna closed out the set and match to take a 25-21, 25-23, 20-25, 25-11 victory.
Gretna, ranked #2 in Class B, improved to 23-1 with the victory while Elkhorn, ranked #7 in B, dropped to 15-5 with the loss.
After dropping two tight sets at the start, Elkhorn controlled the entire third set to take a 25-20 victory and push the match to a fourth game.
After the Dragons jumped out to a quick 5-0 start, Elkhorn called its first timeout but it didn’t throw Scott off, as she followed with an ace serve then Leapley – who finished with 21 kills on the night – had two straight terminations and Kamryn Schuler added an ace block and kill to put Gretna up 10-0. Two more Leapley kills, one from Schuler and another Scott ace helped push the lead to 17-0.
Lauren Edet’s kill from the outside finally stopped the run, but the damage had already been done. Gretna got a little sloppy with its play at the end of the set, but it hardly mattered as it cruised to a 25-11 win in the set and the conference title.
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