Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – No coach enjoys a lousy practice especially when it comes the day before a big game.

Scott Sanders can survive a sloppy pre-match practices if it is followed by a performance like the one his West High team turned in on Tuesday.

West High never trailed in a 25-13, 25-13, 25-10 sweep of Davenport North (12-13) in a Class 5A, Region 7 semifinal in Iowa City.

“If I was going by practice I wouldn’t have thought we were going to be sharp,” Sanders said. “But in all my years of coaching a bad practice means a good game. Always.”

In its first action in 10 days West High was razor sharp on Tuesday while improving to 21-15 and advancing to the Region 7 title game.

Class 5A No. 11 West High will travel to sixth-ranked Dubuque Hempstead (27-7) on Monday for a spot in the state tournament.

“Tonight, we were definitely sharp and when we play like that we are tough,” West High sophomore setter Rylee Fay. “We need to play like that again next week and I think we will be fine.”

Senior Colby Greene had a match-high nine kills and Claire Overton added seven as West High held a 31-14 advantage in kills over the Wildcats.

A less than stellar practice on Monday didn’t deter West High which had six runs of four consecutive points or more in the win.

“A lot of time when we have a bad practice before a game the game actually goes pretty well so I think that’s how it went tonight,” Overton said. “Even though our practice was rough I think we still had confidence.”

Playing for the first time since the Mississippi Valley Conference tournament on Oct. 14 West High showed no signs of rust jumping to a 5-1 lead in the opening set.

West High led 13-6 before scoring seven of the next eight points to build an insurmountable 20-7 cushion.

Five different West High players had a kill during the 7-1 first-set run and five players finished the match with four kills or more.

“All of our hitters are definitely getting there,” Fay said. “I can trust everybody that I set so it’s good.”

West High continued to roll in the second set, busting open a 12-8 lead with a 6-1 spurt that featured a kill and ace block from Greene.

The 6-foot-3 senior had eight of her match-high nine kills in the opening two sets as West High seized control of the match.

“I had a pretty good feeling about tonight,” Greene said. “Usually if we have a rough practice the night before a game it means we are going to do pretty well the next day. It kind of stinks having those bad practices but it has paid off.

“West High led 10-7 in the third set before rattling off 11 straight points behind the serving of senior Keimoney Lang.

Lang had two of West High’s nine ace serves during the 11-0 run that put West High up 21-7.

“Minus the 12 missed serves I thought we were really sharp,” Sanders said. “We were good defensively, we were better than we have been passing wise and we terminated well. I’d like to be a little cleaner, I wish we were a little crisper in serve receive but I like what we did.”

Fay finished with five kills from her setter spot and added three ace serves while Cailyn Morgan and Maddie Laffey each had four kills.

Lang and Liz Walters each had two ace serves.

“We were really strong and we really played together I thought,” Overton said. “That’s what we’ve been working on is teamwork and playing together.”

West High                  25  25  25

Davenport North       13  13   8

(Kills-aces-blocks)

West High

Cailyn Morgan 4-1-0, Rylee Fay 5-3-0, Maddie Laffey 4-0-0, Claire Overton 7-1-2, Emily Burtch 2-0-0, Liz Walters 0-2-0, Keimoney Lang 0-2-0, Colby Greene 9-0-2, Team 31-9-4.

Assists – Rylee Fay 19.

Davenport North

Katie Platt 3-0-0, Morgan Pollmiller 4-0-0, Kayla Sheraden 0-2-0, Megan Reem 3-0-0, Justyus Jackson 2-0-1, Bailey Ortega 1-0-1, Makaya Smith 1-0-1, Team 14-2-3.

Assists – Bailey Ortega 6, Kayla Sheraden 5, Kaitlyn Sparbel 1.