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Lisbon beats Waterloo in four; advances to Salem district

SALEM — Even when things didn’t look good in Thursday’s Division II sectional final, the Lisbon volleyball team’s confidence remained unshaken.

After coming within one point of falling behind two games to none, the third-seeded Blue Devils regrouped in a big way to dispatch sixth-seeded Waterloo 21-25, 27-25, 25-20, 25-20 in a Division III sectional final at Cabas Gymnasium.

“We believed the whole time, we tried to keep each other’s confidence up,” Lisbon senior Karlee Pezzano said. “We all had faith we could come back.”

Up next for Lisbon (14-8) is a rematch with top-seeded and 18th-ranked Crestview (22-2) in a district semifinal at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Salem High School.

Crestview beat Lisbon in four sets on September 6. The Rebels, who swept Campbell 25-8, 25-4, 25-4 in the other sectional final, were the outright champions of the Inter-Tri County League Red Division. The Blue Devils split the ITCL White Division title with Wellsville and Southern.

“We’ll be ready for them,” Pezzano said. “They are a very strong team, but if we play our game then we can beat them.”

The Blue Devils got off to a wobbly start, losing four of the last five points in the first game as the Vikings claimed a 25-21 victory.

Waterloo used another late surge in the second game to take leads of 22-20 and 25-24. With the Vikings serving for the game, Lisbon sophomore Chloe Smith came up with a block to keep the Blue Devils alive. Two vicious kills by junior Kimmi Wiggers tied the match at one game apiece.

Wiggers finished with 31 kills and 23 digs, while Pezzano had 50 assists, four kills and nine digs.

“During a timeout late in the second game, I told the team I know we like to fight back and play the comeback game,” Lisbon coach Kelly Dangler said. “They fought through and pulled it out.”

The Blue Devils rode the momentum to a 7-0 lead in the third game before the Vikings countered with an 8-2 run. Lisbon held a slim lead the rest of the game before pulling away late for a 25-20 win.

“I told the team not to be timid after the second game and swing hard,” Dangler  said. “Our game is power.”

Late in the fourth game, Waterloo led 19-15 and seemed poised to extend the match when Dangler called timeout.

“It was such a back-and-forth match, I could tell we were getting tired,” Dangler said. “I told the team the match was there for the taking if they had the confidence to go get it.”

The Blue Devils responded by ripping off a 10-1 run to close the door.

Hailey McVay added 24 digs and seven kills for Lisbon. Chloe Smith tallied 16 digs. Maddie Liberati had nine kills and five digs.

“We kept telling ourselves, we’re not going five,” Pezzano said. “We didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on ourselves.”

When Crestview and Lisbon met the first time, the Blue Devils were in the midst of a 1-7 start to the season before turning things completely around.

“Overall, Crestview is very solid,” Dangler said. “We have to work on our blocking, but I’m pretty confident we can compete. When we played them the first time we still feeling things out and playing with our rotation. I think we have things down pat now.”

Match notes

¯ The last time the Blue Devils made a district semifinal was 2011 when they finished as the district runner-up.

¯ There were a total of 20 lead changes and 29 ties during the match.

¯ The first two games between Lisbon and Waterloo equaled the amount of time of the entire Crestview-Campbell match, which was completed in 49 minutes.

¯ The Vikings have eight freshmen and just two seniors on their roster

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