Standley Lake girls volleyball pull off stunner in 1st round 4A state tournament

DENVER — Standley Lake hadn’t been to the state girls volleyball tournament in over 30 years, but Thursday morning the Gators announced their presence with authority.

The No. 12-seeded Standley Lake grabbed the upset of the morning matches with a 3-1 victory over No. 5 Lewis-Palmer in the double-elimination Class 4A state tournament at the Denver Coliseum.

“It’s amazing. Amazing,” Standley Lake coach Janelle Bennett said after the Gators defeated 9-time state champion Lewis-Palmer in the first round. “I can’t put it into words. The fact that we were here is a blessing.”

The Rangers took a 25-16 win in the opening set, but it was all Gators after that. Standley Lake (22-4 record) won the next three sets 25-17, 27-25 and 25-22 to stay in the winners’ side of the bracket.

“I had a feeling,” Bennett said of the victory over the Rangers (17-9). “I told the girls this week that we could take this all the way. I said, ‘Your goal was to get to state. We climbed that mountain. Now let’s find that bigger mountain.’ They delivered. It was all them.”

Standley Lake’s previous trip to the girls volleyball state tournament was in 1993. Current assistant coach Heather Martin was a member of that team and her freshman daughter JoJo was a big part in lifting the Gators to the upset win.

“She just said it was going to be a really different environment and you have to have confidence in yourself,” JoJo said of the advice her mother gave her before the Gators took the court. “Just go smash some balls.”

If not for a knee injury last spring, there would have been two Martins on the court Thursday morning. Sydney Martin was third on the team in kills and second in blocks last year as a sophomore, but a knee injury before the summer prevented her from playing volleyball this Fall.

“I was really disappointed. I was really looking forward to playing with my older sister,” JoJo said. “She has been supporting us from the bench. I really appreciate that from her.”

Seniors Jenna Warwick, Maryn Paulson, Alivia Lambrecht-Gardner, Aubrey Garcia, Aly Jenkins and Genevieve Robertson have led the way during this historic season for Standley Lake.

“It was tough,” Warwick said of not having the older Martin sister this season on the court. “We have a really great group of seniors. We all work so hard. There are three of us who have been on varsity all four years.”

Standley Lake is scheduled to face No. 4 Lutheran in the second round of the winners’ side of the bracket around 3:30 p.m. Thursday. The winner will advance to a third-round match at 2 p.m. Friday. The loser will have an 8 a.m. elimination game Friday morning.

“We are just going to focus one game at a time,” JoJo said. “We can beat any team here. We just have to have confidence, play our game and trust each other.”