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No walk in the Cedar Park: Lovejoy battles its way into state finals
BY Scott White, Special to the Allen American
GARLAND -- Lovejoy will be get a chance to play for its fifth straight state title on Saturday after fighting off a scrappy Cedar Park team Thursday night (25-22, 25-20, 19-25, 25-22) in the Class 4A State Semifinals at the Curtis Culwell Center.
But it was far from the Lady Leopards best performance.
Lovejoy had trouble slowing down Cedar Park's Hailey Roberts and Hope Lemon and, at times, was its own worst enemy with a rash of unforced errors.
"To be honest, that was disappointing," said Ryan Mitchell, Lovejoy head coach. "I thought we looked like the rookie team tonight. We scored nine of their first 12 points for them. The truth is we're lucky to be playing in the finals. But [Cedar Park] is a scrappy team that can make you look bad. They stayed aggressive and actually outplayed us in the first two sets. But we made the plays when we needed to."
In the end, Lovejoy had way too much Ebony Nwanebu.
The 6-foot-4 senior finished with 25 kills, 14 digs and a block to lead Lovejoy. Other seniors filled the stat line as well with Mallorie Puckett adding 12 kills, 8 digs and three blocks while Lucy Tweedie put down nine terminations, Shannon Connell put up 50 assists and Brooke Ray led the defense with 18 digs.
Cedar Park led Lovejoy in the opening set, 18-15, before Nwanebu took over with five blasts in a 7-3 run as Lovejoy rallied to win the first set, 25-22.
Cedar Park hung tough in the second until 18-17 when freshman Sarah Langs (six kills, six assisted blocks) and Tweedie sparked a 7-3 closing run to put Lovejoy up, 2-0.
Cedar Park, with Roberts near unstoppable, answered in the third set to pull within 2-1 and led 11-9 in the fourth before Lovejoy began to flex its muscle.
Nwanebu led Lovejoy back to a 15-15 tie then Puckett, with help from Connell on the block, sparked another Lovejoy run. Tessa Dahnert pulled Cedar Park even again, but Nwanebu, Langs and Connell had huge plays in a 5-2 run down the stretch to close out the match, 25-22.
The win sends No. 1 Lovejoy into the finals against Aledo (which upset No. 2 Friendswood in five sets in Thursday's other semifinal) at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
The Lady Leopards are attempting to win their first title at 4A after making UIL history by winning the past four Class 3A State Championships. And Mitchell knows his team will have to play much better in the finals if they hope to accomplish that mission.
"We better play better if we are going to win on Saturday," he said. "We are getting to work tomorrow; that's not going to happen again."
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