Battle Creek — Lowell has done it again, winning another Division 2 boys volleyball championship to cap off the first of two inaugural MHSAA finals in the sport on Saturday at Kellogg Arena.
It marks four straight years that Lowell has won a Division 2 title, with the previous three being awarded by the Michigan Volleyball Coaches Association. And Lowell did it on Saturday by outlasting a Grand Rapids South Christian team that it had already beaten in three prior meetings this season in four sets (25-23, 25-20, 23-25, 25-18).
“South Christian brought it,” Lowell head coach Drew Davidson said. “They played really well, so that was fun to kind of come up against and have to overcome.”
Saturday’s championships, starting with Division 2 and followed by Division 1, are the first-ever MHSAA-awarded boys volleyball titles in Michigan. Following a pair of semifinals in each division on Friday, the state finals conclude the first season boys volleyball competed as an MHSAA-sanctioned varsity sport.
“I think they’ve set an incredible legacy,” Grand Rapids South Christian head coach Mya Udell said of her team. “They have been great leaders. They’ve been super fun to coach. And what’s better than being able to play in the state final?”
South Christian and Lowell (26-6) couldn’t establish much distance from each other in the first 20 or so points of the first set, with South Christian eking out meager leads until Lowell swung the set. From a 12-all tie, Lowell got on serve and won three straight points to seize the momentum and play from the lead.
That spurred Udell to call timeout, as did a later 21-17 lead for Lowell.
Both times, South Christian (28-14-2) responded well out of the timeout, and dragged the match to a 23-23 tie late in the set, leaning — as it did for much of the match — on hitters Noah Klump and Jack Borisch as well as middle blockers Noah Jager and Carson Joldersma. Setter Ezra Miller also often came up big for South Christian on Saturday.
But at 23-all in the first set, South Christian dug out a kill attempt from Lowell, only for Borisch to hit it into the net from the left side and give Lowell an opening, a 24-23 lead for set point.
A missed kill wide to the right from South Christian sealed the set, putting Lowell up, 1-0, in the match.
And Lowell followed a similar path in the second set, riding a neck-and-neck run of play to 15-15 before carving out a 19-16 lead, spurring a timeout from South Christian. And while that timeout gave a jolt to the underdogs and the set ended up tied at 19, it was another miscue by South Christian that cost it, as a misplay on a dig cost it a point and put Lowell up, 20-19.
Lowell won five of the next six points and took the second set, 25-20, for a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five match.
“We competed every point,” Udell said. “It was back and forth, all sets. I just can’t be more proud of them. We took a set off Lowell, and they’re an incredible team. But I thought my voice had been great and I was really proud of that.”
The potential for a sweep for Lowell loomed as the third set followed the same script through the first half, but this time South Christian built up a lead, going up 17-11 on Lowell when it looked like another set would unravel.
Lowell won six straight points to tie the match at 17, and when South Christian libero Brock Hoekwater’s desperate diving, over-the-shoulder attempt to save a point with his back to the net hit ended up going out when it hit the ceiling, things felt sealed as Lowell took an 18-17 lead.
But South Christian, which had played a much cleaner set in the third, rediscovered that form and fought back from a 19-17 deficit to tie the match at 19 before Joldersma capped the set win with a simple kill from the middle for a 25-23 win to force a fourth set.
“Just being there when each other makes mistakes, with each other when we make mistakes, and then being with each other when we’re winning, and when we’re doing good,” Jager said. “Because the second we start yelling and fighting each other, then that’s when we’re going against each other, we can’t go against an opponent.”
For Lowell, a team that features just one senior in setter Max Davidson, that third set caused some consternation as South Christian rallied to take the point and force a fourth set.
After responding well to the challenges from South Christian in the first two sets, Drew Davidson felt his team got a bit flustered and needed to refocus.
“I like seeing them get flustered and stuff like that and then seeing how they kind of respond, you saw it in the third game where we responded poorly,” Davidson said. “We kept getting — we couldn’t side out. And then what happened in the fourth game there, where we responded and came back out and just kind of finished the job off.”
Whatever shift occurred going into the fourth set was decisive, as Lowell rolled out to a lead and never relinquished it as the powerhouse program seized another state title.
And with all but one player returning from this team, there’s plenty of optimism that Lowell is just beginning a run of dominance in the MHSAA-sanctioned era of boys volleyball.
“Just the opportunity that they get to play with the older kids, and then just what that’ll do for next year and years to come is really exciting,” Davidson said.
Andrew Graham is a freelance writer.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Lowell fends off familiar foe to win first MHSAA boys volleyball title
Reporting by Andrew Graham, Special to The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Andrew Graham, Special to The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
