La Salle Can't Keep Up With St. Lucy's

The team that left it on the court so often this year, unfortunately left it all behind on Tuesday night. The La Salle girl's volleyball team lost in straight sets to St. Lucy's by a score of 18-25, 16-25, 16-25 in the CIF-Southern Section Division 2AA semifinals.

"We never got into a rhythm," Lancers coach Ben Diaz said. "These games happen. We just didn't expect it to be on this night."

The Lancers were never really in the game. They fell behind almost immediately in every set and were forced to play catch-up the entire night.

"We were always on our heels, trying to get back," Diaz said. "(St. Lucy's) isn't a team you can do that to."

The result was that the Lancers suffered from numerous miscues, missed serves, and poor defense that allowed the Regents to find open spots for kills.

La Salle only led once the entire game, and it was for just a brief moment when the Lancers found themselves in front 10-9 in the second set.

"We really just gave up after the first set," outside hitter Alex Daugherty said, "and we were never able to get our game back after that."

Credit a Regent's team that looked very sharp. The triple threat of Jasmine Warmington, Alissa Young and Deana Dalton simply overwhelmed the Lancers.

"We're a hard team to defend against," Regents coach Sean Douglas said. "You can't just take one of them out of the game. Someone else will step up."

True to form, the Regents were always in the right place, and their kills always seemed to find open spots in the Lancer defense.

However, the loss for La Salle caps a year that the team is extremely proud of. The Lancers finished with an overall record of 23-6-1, and they won three straight playoff games before losing in the semis.

But most importantly La Salle went undefeated in Del Rey League play and were league champions for the first time.

"Alex and I have been on varsity for four years," libero Chelsea Kennedy said. "And we made history, I'm so proud of everyone."

The future looks bright for the Lancers. While seniors like Kennedy and Daugherty move onto to college competition (Kennedy at Marist College and Daugherty possibly at Bucknell), the team is well stocked with underclassmen such as sophomores Katrina Palfy and Jessica Kennedy (Chelsea's younger sister).

"This has been a really good year," said Palfy. "We won league, went far into CIF. … Next year we go further."

"The younger kids are going to learn from this," Diaz added. "Come next year we are ready to battle again. We have a lot of things to look forward to."