4A girls volleyball: Lewis-Palmer bests league rival Lutheran and other Day 1 highlights

Throughout the regular season, it wasn’t easy to find much separation between Pikes Peak League foes Lutheran and Lewis-Palmer. Each had beaten the other at their own place and their playoff seeding reflected a similar story — the No. 4 Lions were just above the No. 5 Rangers.

It was therefore fitting that they were given an opportunity to settle things on neutral territory at the Denver Coliseum on Thursday for a Class 4A second-round matchup.

But Lewis-Palmer, which beat No. 12 Durango earlier in the day, proved to be the stronger team — at least for now — with a 3-1 victory (25-21, 25-10, 18-25, 25-12). The Rangers now advance to face another league rival, No. 1 Palmer Ridge, in the quarterfinals Friday (2 p.m.) while Lutheran begins its hopeful trek up the elimination bracket.

“After seeing them twice already, we obviously knew some of their tendencies,” said Lewis-Palmer head coach Alexa Strube. “Our girls really executed the game plan that we need them to.”

The first set began with both teams exchanging points until Lewis-Palmer broke away from a 20-all tie to win by four; junior Kiley Gennerman had the final kill. Set two was all Rangers from start to finish but despite having some considerable momentum, they couldn’t sweep in the third set.

The Rangers were holding their breaths momentarily in that third set when freshman Madi Crow, who came in second on the team with 216 kills, injured her elbow on one of the net posts following a spike. She soon returned, though, and led Lewis-Palmer with 14 kills.

Lewis-Palmer quickly erased the set loss, though, and scored the first eight points in the fourth en route to taking the match.

“I feel like we played as a team,” Crow said. “Playing as a team always helps because we work together, and we work really hard. The impact that this team has had on each other is really good.”

Gennerman finished the game with 10 kills and senior Amya Speller, the only remaining Ranger from their 2019 state championship team, contributed nine.

“Every single girl has a role on this team and they do that role really well,” Strube said. “I’m super proud of our right side blockers, our middle blockers in transition and our other outside, Kiley, and just our defense in the backcourt. I can’t give it all to one person; it takes every single one of them and we did a great job.”

On the other side of the bracket, Windsor outlasted Niwot in five sets to reach the quarterfinals. The Wizards will take on No. 2 Thompson Valley, after the defending champions defeated No. 7 Discovery Canyon final second-round match of the night.

In first-round play, Cheyenne Mountain beat Pueblo County, Niwot beat Woodland Park and Discovery Canyon took defeated Palisade, all matches by a score of 3-1.