High school girls volleyball: Orem holds off Lone Peak in 4 sets

Orem came out flying from the outset Tuesday night in a matchup against Lone Peak, and the Tigers found a way to get past a gritty Knights side, taking the match in four sets: 25-10, 23-25, 25-20, 25-22.

“I give a lot of credit to Lone Peak. They are a pretty good team and have some pretty big hitters. They’re still trying to work things out on their offense, but I give them credit for exposing some things that we can work on,” Orem head coach Bill Sefita said.

Orem could not have asked for a better start. The home side got on top of Lone Peak early, scoring 13 of the first 15 points on their way to a comfortable and stress-free first set win.

Lone Peak eventually eased into the match and overcame some uncharacteristic errors. After going down 5-1 early in the second set, Lone Peak scored nine straight to create a somewhat comfortable lead. The two teams ended up going back and forth and exchanging points for the latter half of the set before Lone Peak found a way to even things up at one set a piece.

“I think for us, it’s just about focusing on the controllables. The biggest question we have been asking a lot of the girls is instead of looking at what we aren’t doing we should be asking what can we do? I like to focus on our strength and fast-paced approach because I think that helps us improve our confidence,” Sefita said.

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Orem, however, did not panic and relied on the work and practice that they put in throughout the week. Orem called a timeout after going down 7-3 in the early stages of the third set. The Tigers scored six straight points off of the timeout and nine out of the next 11.

“It all starts in our practice. Every day in practice we remind them that we can do hard things and we always talk about how we are trying to make our practices harder and more challenging,” Sefita said. “Once it’s challenging, we remind them of the things that we can do in practice and that kind of relays into our games. When things get tough or uncomfortable, we are reminded that we have done it in practice.”

Orem would then go on to finish the match the same way it started and got off to a strong start in the fourth set, taking an early 3-0 lead. The Tigers never relinquished that lead no matter how tough Lone Peak tried to make it on them.

The win makes it four straight wins for Orem, with their last and only loss up to this point in the season coming against Skyridge.

“I think the loss to Skyridge really opened our eyes about the potential of the team,” Sefita said. “We talked in the huddle that our team hasn’t reached the potential yet and we are still on our way in exploring the potential.”