High school boys volleyball: Orem’s overwhelming offense earned it a 4A championship over Timpanogos

Last year disaster struck for the Orem Tigers as they were on the verge of winning the inaugural 4A boys volleyball state tournament against Pine View. The top-seeded Tigers gained a 2-1 set lead but crumbled as Pine View won two straight sets and the 2024 crown.

In Thursday’s 4A championship game, Orem was in all too familiar position after taking a 24-22 set point lead with a 2-0 set lead. No. 7 Timpanogos rallied back and forth and tied the championship match at 28-28.

With a previous championship loss experience, the Tigers knew exactly what they needed to do as it finished the last set 30-28 and earned a 4A championship with a 3-0 sweep over Timpanogos.

“We asked the boys, ‘Last year was last year. We got to focus on this year. What can we do this year,” said Orem head coach Bill Sefita. “That difference was from last year and I think the biggest thing is just the mentality. And then two, what can we do as a team and then going after and taking care of the ball early on.”

All evening the Timberwolves struggled to keep up with Orem’s overwhelming offense. The Tigers have multiple threats on the net, but maybe their most potent offensive weapon is setter Lucky Jennings.

Jennings ended the 4A championship game with 34 assists. His connection with his middles Aaron Nielsen and Luke Wolsey gave the Orem offense a variety of weapons that was difficult to stop. Nielsen and Wolsey each finished Thursday’s game with nine kills for the Tigers.

“Aaron Nielsen, he was my club middle,” Jennings said. “For Luke (Wolsey) we just connected. We really haven’t been playing with each other a lot, but when we started playing together, we knew we were going to have a heck of a season.”

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Orem came out as the better team, earning a dominant 20-11 lead and finishing the first set 25-18. The second set did not start as strong for the Tigers as Timpanogos took a 10-5 lead. Still, Orem rallied for a convincing 25-19 lead.

While the Orem middles were proving to be a threat, senior outside hitter Ben Hone racked up the kills. Hone finished with a team-high 13 kills.

“We really started to focus on getting the passes and using the middles,” said Hone. “A lot of it was thinking about winning is just a recipe and we have to be able to get all the ingredients into the recipe so that we can actually come out with the W.”

Things got scary for Orem after it took a 24-22 lead in the third set as Timpanogos rallied back to earn multiple set points. With the game going back and forth, Orem earned a 29-28 lead and sealed the championship with the set that worked so well for them throughout Thursday’s game, a set from Jennings to the middle to Wolsey.

Orem finished the year with a 26-6 overall record, a perfect 8-0 Region 8 championship and a 4A state championship.

“It wasn’t a pretty season, I mean, we had a lot of adversities that hit us, but we asked the boys just to continue chipping in one day at a time,” Sefita said. “We had certain goals in mind, one of them was taking region. We accomplished that and then the next goal was to take state and we were able to do that today.”