Lake Leelanau St. Mary narrowly escaped Suttons Bay during a home volleyball match on August 8.
The Eagles and Norse battled in a five set thriller where St. Mary came out on top 3-2.
Suttons Bay won the first set 25-23 and fell behind early in the second. After a fierce comeback of roughly 10 points, St. Mary barely pulled through to win the second set 25-23.
In the third set, St. Mary took a 2-1 series lead. Suttons Bay would narrowly take the fourth set 24-26 to set up the all important fifth set.
Suttons Bay jumped out to a quick lead before St. Mary crawled back to take the lead. The fifth set went back and forth until the Eagles put the game away to end a thrilling early season volleyball match 15-13.
“They’ve improved a ton. (Suttons Bay) were digging everything up. They were hitting everything, and we just kept staying hungry, hanging in there, coming back and coming back and coming back. Really proud of the girls’ grit and hard work to get the win,” St. Mary coach Alyssa Bunek said. “I hope they are learning to never give up. That never give up mentality. It’s a game of swings and we won the swings tonight.”
This is the closest game between Suttons Bay and St. Mary volleyball in recent memory.
St. Mary seniors Kyla Barnowski and Cathryn Mikowski combined for 25 kills and 37 digs.
“This win feels amazing since we lost to them last time. We definitely could play it a lot better, but we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Barnowski said. “We kind of just had our heads down after the first set and we talked and knew what we had to do and just communicated better and got our spirits up.”
The Norse defeated St. Mary last week in a two-set quad match.
Stats: Lydia Bramer 3 kills, 12 digs, 3 aces, 40 assists; Barnowski 13 kills, 17 digs; Mikowski 12 kills, 20 digs 5 aces, 1 block; Maggie Ursu 2 kills, 14 digs, 2 aces; Mackenzie Schaub 8 kills, 1 ace, 1 block; Daisy Serrano 12 digs, 1 ace.
“We know that we can come back and we know that we can fight,” Mikowski said.
Suttons Bay was led by an entire team effort.
Suttons Bay senior Brooke Wilson was dominant at the net earning multiple blocks. Suttons Bay freshman Ava Anderson led with nine kills and three aces. Junior Megan U’Ren provided offensive fire power for the Norse with 11 kills, 10 digs and four aces. Suttons Bay senior Bekka Grant set her teammates up all night leading the Norse in assists and digs with 30. Yasmin Alfonseca also contributed four aces in the loss.
“I’m really impressed with how well they did. They fought really hard and took one of our rivals to five games, which was great,” Suttons Bay coach Olivia Dohm said. “I’m hoping (this game) fuels their drive to want to continue to work really hard.”
