UPPER LAKE >> The Lower Lake Trojans are an inexperienced team, but they rallied like a veteran club on Wednesday night while outlasting the Upper Lake Cougars 16-25, 25-23, 19-25, 25-20, 15-11 in non-league varsity volleyball action at Upper Lake.
It was the first win of the season for coach Niki Emberson’s club, which went 0-4 during last weekend’s Middletown Tournament despite winning the first set in all four pool play matches.
“We’re inexperienced,” Emberson said. “Our seniors have had a different coach every season. Some of the girls who played last year didn’t come back and many of the girls on the team haven’t played together very much.” Down two sets to one in the best-of-five match, Lower Lake (1-4) rallied in set four on the strength of libero Maria Santos’ digs. She finished with 20 digs overall.
“Some of them were amazing and kept us from losing,” Emberson said. “I don’t know how she got to some of them.”
Going to the fifth and deciding set, the Trojans were energized and communicating with each other, according to Emberson.
“We had high energy in the last game,” she added.
Lily Griffin powered the Trojans with 11 kills, 15 digs and three aces, Shelby Sapeta added 10 kills and nine aces, and setter Tessa Biasotti had 16 assists and three aces.
Upper Lake (0-4) is still looking for its first victory of the 2018 season.
In the junior varsity match, Upper Lake rallied from a 13-2 deficit in the second set to finish off Lower Lake 25-16, 26-24 behind the serving of Dina Loans-Arrow and the net play of Laylah Medina.
