Altoona rallies to end State College's season

Steve Richards

- For the CDT

TYRONE — The District 6 Class AAA girls' volleyball trophy will be in the same place for at least another year.

This time State College and Altoona battled to an instant classic five-set match, rather than last year’s Altoona sweep. The Lady Mountain Lions prevailed 25-19, 17-25, 19-25, 25-16, 15-9 Wednesday night at Tyrone Middle School to take home the hardware for the second consecutive year.

The Lady Little Lion offense was led by Lauren Hester, who tallied 13 kills to go along with her four blocks on the defensive side of the net. Also contributing in the kill column for the Lady Little Lions was Ally Fleagle with nine and Elizabeth Novack with seven. Novack also had nine digs to lead State College, while Fleagle led the team in assists with 11 and aces with seven.

The first set was a back-and-forth affair, which turned out to be a microcosm of the entire match. After a 10-10 start, Altoona picked up 15 of the next 24 points to earn their first set win.

“We have to tip our hats to Altoona,” coach Tomuke Ebuwei said. “We’d like to be on the other side tonight, but I’m proud of our team.”

The next two sets were all State College, thanks to a solid team effort. In their two wins, the Lady Little Lions worked the bump-set-spike strategy to perfection and it paid off. Hester, Fleagle and Novack all racked up their respective stats in those two frames, and the packed Tyrone gym was filled with the deafening chants of “Let’s Go State.” The Lady Little Lions used

runs to take their sets as well, with a run of six in the second set and four in the third.

In the fourth set it seemed as though the Lady Mountain Lions realized they were in fact the defending district champions.

They came out and ripped off four straight points, forcing State College to call a quick timeout.

“One of the problems we had tonight is we struggled to stop the bleeding,” Ebuwei said. “We could side-out, but then gave up a point again right away.”

Altoona would go on to an easy win and force an exciting race to 15 for the AAA title.

The fifth set became Altoona’s right away, and aside from a late run from the resilient State College squad, the Lady Mountain Lions cruised to a final set win.

“Our girls played really hard, but our glaring problem was we hit negative in the fifth set,” Ebuwei said. “You can’t expect to win a 15 (-point set) when you hit negative.”

Ebuwei couldn’t state enough how proud she was of her program.

“We’re still learning how to run a program,” the second- year coach said. “That’s the unfortunate part, but we’re taking steps toward a positive future.”