Ravenna recorded a 25-21, 25-11, 19-25, 25-13 win against the unranked Trojans at the NU Coliseum.
GENE COTTER / For the Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, November 16, 2008 6:00 pm
Ravenna seniors Mallory Irvine and Madison Pernicek, and Cambridge senior Traci Keyser had a little game of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better going Saturday night in the finals of the Class C-2 State Volleyball Tournament.
As it turned out, Irvine, Pernicek and the No. 1 Blue Jays were right.
Ravenna used 13 kills and nine blocks from Irvine and 10 kills from Pernicek to offset 12 kills and six blocks by Keyser as the Blue Jays recorded a 25-21, 25-11, 19-25, 25-13 win against the unranked Trojans at the NU Coliseum.
"Those two, I can't say enough about them," Ravenna coach Korina Wick said. "They're just our go-to players and they've known that since they were freshmen."
Pernicek and Keyser exchanged kills early in the first set and the contest was even at 9 points apiece. That was the last Cambridge (20-12) would see of Ravenna, at least for a while.
By the end of the set, Pernicek had hammered six kills and Keyser had five kills and four blocks, but the Trojans had committed eight errors and Ravenna was off to the races.
Then in set two, it was Irvine's turn and the Trojans couldn't get anything going.
Irvine posted six kills and a block, and teammate Elizabeth Tonniges chipped in three kills and a block as Cambridge added another six errors to assist Ravenna in seizing total control of the match.
"They were pretty hard to defend. That first set we kind of messed around and got mixed up in the motions," Keyser said. "We could stop them a little bit, but they just have some great hitters that did an awesome job of hitting it around our block."
Although Keyser got another three kills, along with a block and an ace, and Frankie Petersen chipped in five kills and a block in the third set to help Cambridge pull within a set, Irvine came back to life at the net for Ravenna, Tonniges tallied another four kills and the Blue Jays finally found a way past the Trojans.
"We lost our focus and relaxed a little bit," Irvine said. "We got (mad) after the third one."
Tonniges finished with eight kills and four aces for the Blue Jays. Ravenna finished with 11 service errors, compared with three for Cambridge.
Petersen added nine kills for Cambridge.