Above: Ashley Deschampe looks on as Bekah Laky digs the ball from the floor in the Vikings’ game against Duluth Marshall. Above right: Ali Iverson gets ready to send the ball back over the net against the Marshall Hilltoppers. Right: Taylor Ryden tips the ball over the Hilltoppers’ front line for an easy score. The Vikings beat the Hilltoppers and Silver Bay then faced Cherry for the Section championship game on Wednesday, Nov. 2. The Vikes lost a heartbreaker 3-2 to Cherry. A full story will run in next week’s paper.
For the second straight year, the Cook County Viking volleyball team took the No. 1 seed into the Section 7A playoffs. A home playoff game was the reward and the Vikings used that to propel themselves to the semifinals for the third straight year.
Duluth Marshall came up the shore for a battle, with revenge on their minds after the Vikings shellacked them earlier this year. The Vikings started out slow with the Hilltoppers jumping out to a quick 6-0 lead.
Junior Ali Iverson put the Vikes on the board with a smash right in the middle of the Marshall defense. Iverson scored the Vikings’ first three points, but it would be a long time before the Vikings would take their first lead. Iverson scored a big block to give them a 19-18 advantage, and with the Vikings leading 22-19, Ashley “Dish” Deschampe hammered two straight spikes for points and Bekah Laky finished off the visitors with an ace serve. It wasn’t a very pretty game, with many mistakes on poor passes and a major lack of communication, but in the end, the Vikings were able to pull it out.
Game two proved to be a lot of the same type of play for the Vikings. The Vikes did jump out to a quick lead this time, but the scrappy Hilltoppers battled back to get within three, at 22-19. Spurred by the front row play of Gabriella Igboko, the Vikings had a tough time angling their hits around her outstretched arms. The Vikings rallied, though, and again they finished off Marshall with three straight points to give them a big 2-0 advantage.
The third game was about as ugly as the first two, with the much more talented Vikings struggling to do the little things right but because of the talent disparity, they were able to pull out the win. Iverson played extremely well in all three games and Dish was quick around the net fielding the Marshall tips. Laky led the team with 23 digs, an area in which the Vikings struggled all game. The Vikes were able to pull out the third game by the exact score of the first two games, 25-19. The Vikings felt relieved after the win, knowing they’d have to play much better if they wanted to keep advancing in the playoffs.
For the third time this year, the Vikings lined up on opposite sides of the net of the Silver Bay Mariners. The Vikings started out a little slow but quickly turned on the jets. Theresa Morrin had a great night passing, moving her feet and getting the ball to setters Laky and Taylor Ryden. The Vikings gained the lead and never looked back, finishing off the Mariners 25-19.
After a solid start, the Vikes actually picked up their play, rolling on quick and back sets to blow away Silver Bay. The beastly hitting of Deschampe put the Mariners on their heels, while Iverson and Morrin dropped in tips and kills in front of them. The 25-13, 25-16 wins gave the Vikes the sweep. It was the best the Vikings looked in a while, something noted by Coach Pam Taylor: “It was nice to come back and play better than we did against Marshall. The girls worked well together, moved well, and put each other in position to be successful.”
Theresa Morrin commented on the quick turnaround in their play, “We worked a lot on moving our feet and talking in practice. It really helped us think about what we needed to do better.” After a couple days of practice, the Vikings will take on Cherry in the Section Semifinals. The Vikings lost to Cherry last year in the Section Championship, so a little revenge might be on the minds of the Vikings. If they play with the intensity they showed against Silver Bay, that might just be an attainable goal.
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