Lake Orion Volleyball Serves Up Win, Advances to State Quarterfinals

LAKE ORION - Bob Howey hopes his first confetti shower won’t be his last. 

The volleyball head coach watched his team earn the school its first regional title since 1988 with a three-set sweep (25-17, 25-21, 25-21) over on Thursday night in Lake Orion.

After Colts junior Nicole Hahn hit the ball out of bounds on the last play, the Dragons girls grabbed a Gatorade cooler and went after their coach.  To his surprise, he didn’t get soaked with the colored energy drink. 

“I thought it was at first,” Howey said, laughing. “Amazing. We thought we had a shot after last year with what we had coming back, and we just kept working, working, working, and it was a little bit of a struggle tonight, but we got it done.”

Lake Orion wasn’t as sharp as it was in the regional semifinals against Marian. The girls had to hold off late runs in the second and third sets to keep Troy from extending the match.

“We were focused enough, maybe they were a little bit nervous to finish it off,” Howey said. “Troy was the best I’ve seen them all year long.”

The Colts were able to cut a seven-point Dragons lead down late in the second set to 20-17 before falling behind for good.

In the third set, Olivia Parks almost single-handedly erased an eight-point deficit to extend the match to a fourth set. The sophomore scored Troy’s last five points with four kills and an ace. She pulled the Colts within one point at 22-21.

“We like our sophomore,” Troy head coach Ed Ruhl said, laughing. “Olivia needs to be involved in just about every play, that’s why I left her in, in the back row because she was in the zone.”

It ended up being too little, too late for the Colts. Lake Orion settled down and closed out the match with a quick 3-0 run.

Ruhl thought the biggest difference in the first two sets was how effective the Dragons' serve was. Troy was able to generate offense at teams on volleys, but it was never able to serve as consistently or effectively as Lake Orion was.

“They served lights out,” Ruhl said. “They served really well, high deep floaters that my kids were passing straight up in the air. It was two games into the match before we got into it.”

Shannon Murdock led the Dragons for the second straight game in kills; the senior had seven on Thursday. Her sister Sophie Murduck had three blocks, as did Angelica LeDonne. 

Madeline Hutchinson had 11 digs and Dana Schrauben had a game-high 10 assists.

Lake Orion (52-12) will now advance to the quarterfinals Tuesday night against Macomb Dakota. The game will be played at St. Clair Shores Lake Shore with a 7 p.m. start time.

“They’ll be fired up,” Howey said. “We’ve played Dakota twice. The first time we played them it was in a tournament so it was best of three, and it went three. It was at Dakota, it was extremely loud and a great match.”

For tonight, the Dragons are going to celebrate their achievement of being one step away from making it to Battle Creek. 

“I’m so pumped right now,” Sophie Murdock said. “We haven’t won regional in over 20 years, so its just a great feeling to get this for our school.”