Photo by Jake McNeill Kiara (6) and Taylor Hinz (8) react after Megan Schwartz (4) scores the final point in Lakeview’s 3-0 win over Yellow Medicine East in the first round of the 3A section tournament at Lakeview High School on Monday night.

COTTONWOOD — The Lakeview volleyball team sent its home crowd happy for one last time this season on Monday night. The No. 7S Lakers took down the No. 10 Yellow Medicine East Sting in Cottonwood on Monday night to advance past the first round of the 3A section tournament in straight sets. The Lakers won the match with game scores of 25-20, 25-21 and 25-21.

“It’s fantastic. I’m extremely proud of us for going out like this on the home court for my last game. It’s just fantastic,” Lakeview senior Olivia Hinz said after the match. “The entire team was with us when we got ready today, so we had more team bonding before the game just to get really pumped up and ready to go.”

In her final home match as a Laker, Olivia Hinz finished with 10 kills and 15 digs, good for second on the team in both categories.

Kiara Hinz led the Lakeview front line with 11 kills. She also had four digs in the match.

“Just keep mixing them [my shots] up. Never put them in the same place so they know where you’re going and switch it around every time you hit,” Kiara Hinz said of her strategy at the net on the night.

While the Lakers led two sets to none heading into the final set, the Sting didn’t give up. They jumped out to a 7-1 lead to start the frame and looked like a brand-new team.

“I told them Lakeview was a scrappy team and they’ve got a solid outside with them,” YME head coach Alexis Peters said of her message to the team before the set. She added that they had too many errors in the second set, so cleaning that up would be key to success. “You’ve just got to keep your composure, take deep breaths and just play clean ball. When we get points, we’ve got to get excited. Getting energy gets in people’s heads and that’s what we need to do.”

To the Lakers’ credit, they didn’t back down once the Sting’s energy started to shine through. Lakeview responded with an 8-1 run of their own to take a 9-8 lead and the set remained back-and-forth from there. Neither team led by more than one point from there until, after the set was tied at 14-14, Lakeview went on a 5-0 run to take control. The Sting kept things close, but the Lakers held on and stamped out the win with a kill from Megan Schwartz, her sixth of the night.

“Just decided to stick with what was working for us and don’t try and change anything. We’re doing just fine, just calm down,” Lakeview head coach Stephanie Hennen said of the third-set comeback. “YME’s going to throw everything they possibly can because their season is on the line too. You’ve just got to stick with it and believe in your teammates and in yourself and I thought they did a nice job of battling back tonight.”

Kiara Sakry got her 1000th career dig for the Sting, making a diving save with the set tied at 10 points apiece. Sakry had been a libero but was moved to outside hitter to meet the team’s needs for her senior year, Peters said. Play was paused momentarily to acknowledge her accomplishment.

“She adds such a calm composure to our team. She’s kind of the glue that no one really sees, but she’s a phenomenal player and her leadership skills are amazing. It’s something that we’re really going to miss and she definitely deserved that tonight,” Peters said. Sakry went on to finish the night with a match-high 20 digs. Ella Cherveny and Narrioa Leenerts also had 18 and 15 respectively for the Sting.

Back-row play was big for both teams on the night. Lakeview and YME consistently were able to extend points long past the serve. For the Lakers, Aubrey Nething led the way with 17 digs while Teegan Fiene added another 15.

“To lose those points, it’s such a momentum-killer,” Hennen said. “We just wanted to hang with it and mix up shots and we didn’t want to get into a tipping game with them… we wanted to keep swinging and mixing up our shots and I think it worked.”

Aubreigh Rausch was a big part of the Lakers’ ability to mix up their shots. The junior setter finished the night with 32 set assists in addition to her 12 digs.

“We tell Aubreigh, ‘As a setter, whenever you can jump, it opens up the court more for any of our hitters.’ She did that and it helped Kiara,” Hennen said.

In addition to Kiara and Olivia Hinz finishing in double figures, Taylor Hinz also had six kills and 13 digs on the night.

While the Sting started the third set off hot, it was Lakeview that applied pressure to start the second. The Lakers started the set with a 5-0 run but the Sting kept pace from there. Lakeview was never able to put significant distance between the two teams and YME eventually tied the set at 20-20. Still, a 5-1 run for the Lakers put the finishing touches on the set.

Riley Streich set up the Sting hitters with 15 set assists in the match. She also had 10 digs and a block. On the finishing end of those assists, Alana Almich had 10 kills and Sakry had another five. Almich also had a match-high six blocks.

The Lakers’ victory was a revenge match of sorts after YME ended Lakeview’s season in the first round of last year’s 3A tournament. The win is also Lakeview’s first section tournament win since 2019, in which they advanced to the quarterfinals before being eliminated in five sets by Canby.

“We talked about that [last year’s match] a little bit tonight but didn’t want to talk about it too much because we didn’t want to jinx anything,” Hennen said. “We went over there and beat them in four [sets] earlier in the year, so we knew we were going to be in for a little bit of a battle tonight, more than we wanted. But I thought our kids responded very well and stuck to the game plan.”

Yellow Medicine East finishes its season at 4-21 with the loss. With a largely young core, they’ll be returning most of their roster for next season. Still, the contributions of Strike, Sakry, and Leenerts will be missed.

“We graduated our whole starting lineup last season, so it was a whole new team this year and we just worked on how we grow from here,” Peters said. “We build with every game, we’ve got to get better and better each time, and they definitely did that.

“I’m very excited to see what next season brings since we bring back a good starting lineup for us in the season, but our seniors totally took that leadership role and they never had to before, so I’m very proud of how they took that on this season.”

The Lakers (11-14) will try to keep advancing when they head to Canby to face the No. 6 Lancers on Friday night. Canby earned the No. 2 seed in the South bracket behind a 21-8 regular season. The Lancers won the teams’ last matchup on Oct. 10 in straight sets.

“[The focus is] to really work hard in practice and keep pushing, watch what Canby does on film, find their weaknesses and hit those spots,” Kiara Hinz said.

Hennen added that defense is going to be a big focus for the Lakers ahead of the matchup.

“I thought we served well tonight, but we’re going to work on defense and, again, mixing up our shots in the front end, blocking and just see what we can do,” Hennen said.