Colleyville Heritage sweeps Lake Creek, advances to volleyball state title match
It will be an all Dallas-Fort Worth final in Class 5A as Colleyville Heritage steam rolled by Montgomery Lake Creek 25-18, 25-18, 25-18 in a state semifinal game on Friday at Culwell Center.
Heritage (42-7), in its first appearance at the UIL state volleyball tournament, will meet Frisco Reedy (28-13) at 3 p.m. Saturday. Reedy swept Liberty Hill in the first 5A semifinal.
“Going into the match, we knew Lake Creek was a good team,” Heritage coach Josh McKinney said. “Thought we did a great job executing and the biggest thing for us is controlling the first touch. When we do that, we’re hard to stop.”
“It’s anybody’s game. We’re different teams. It’s going to be a serve pass game and whoever can hold serve and be able to have the first contact, will come out on top,” McKinney added about the Reedy match up.
Reagan Engler (Air Force signee) picked up her first kill on the Morgan Howard assist and Suli Davis’ attempt couldn’t be dug by the Lions. Ella Busey (Houston) added a kill and Lake Creek called its first timeout trailing 10-5 in the opening set.
Maddie Bird picked up an ace and Howard and Davis connected on back to back tries as the lead was pushed to 14-7. Davis, a sophomore, led Heritage with 10 kills and hit 0.320.
The Panthers were the first to 20 in all three sets. Engler scored off the slide to make it 21-15. Lake Creek (32-17), also in its first state appearance, scored three in a row to cut the lead in half. Davis finished off the set with back to back kills and the Panthers led 1-0.
“It’s really helpful that it wasn’t just one player that Morgan can set,” Davis said. “Just spreading it out to open up the blockers really helped us.”
Engler had nine kills and a game-high 0.429 hitting.
Bird also had nine kills with just one error, two blocks and nine digs.
“Looking at the box score, we could’ve set any one at any time. We kept them off balance,” McKinney said. “We served well, passed well and our side out game was strong, and that made all the difference.”
The Lions managed to lead 5-2 in the second set. but Busey sparked the Panthers to four in a row. Bird killed a Howard assist and Howard picked up a solo block to tie the set at 7.
Bird started to heat up with two more kills and Heritage led 11-7. Engler had a kill in the middle and Lake Creek called a timeout trailing 14-8. Engler scored in the back corner and Busey’s kill made it 18-13. Busey had a massive kill and Engler’s block had the Panthers up 21-17. Howard set a kill to Engler and Bird scored on set point as Heritage took a 2-0 lead.
“It’s kind of exciting to know that we’re both in the same boat and we’re fighting for our lives,” Busey said. “We both want to go to the championship and it’s a great environment that we’re used to being in from practice. We were really prepared for it.”
Heritage had 10 total blocks with Lucy Cisneros leading with six block assists. Busey had a team-high 15 digs and four block assists. Bird and Engler added two block assists each.
Davis had 11 digs and reigning player of the week Ava Ash added 13 digs.
Bird’s solo block and a Cisneros kill pushed Heritage ahead 8-4 in the third set. Lake Creek, looking to extend the match, tied the match at 8 after a block. But the Panthers went up 12-9 and 15-11 on points from Bird, Engler and Cisneros. Busey’s kill off left side made it 17-12 and Heritage led 20-13. Lake Creek cut it to 20-16 and Engler aced a serve on match point to send the Panthers to the win.
