Oakland Christian holds off Lutheran Northwest

BY DAN STICKRADT

SENIOR EDITOR

dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com

ROYAL OAK — Priscilla Larned never thought she’d see the day.

The veteran Auburn Hills Oakland Christian volleyball coach celebrated her 37^th wedding anniversary with her husband, Patrick Larned, Tuesday night.

“This was a great anniversary present,” admitted Larned, whose team swept Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest 3-0 in a district quarterfinal match. “It’s always nice to win on your anniversary.

“And I didn’t think that he’d stick around that long,” laughed Larned, referring to Patrick. “That is even better.”

While Larned enjoyed her special day, her team earned the right to stick around a while in the postseason, at least another two days. Oakland Christian advanced to Thursday’s district semifinals against district host Royal Oak Shrine Catholic.

The Lancers downed Northwest 25-19, 25-14 and 26-24 in a mere hour, shaking off the pesky Crusaders, who were trying to avoid losing three times this season to the same season.

This year is different for Oakland Christian. The Lancers are competing in Class C for the first time after the school has competed in Class D since the early 1970s.

“We’ll live another day, I guess,” offered Larned, whose team has won 10 straight districts in class D. “This is our first ever win in Class C, so that is different. It’s going to be a little tougher for us this season.”

For Northwest, it was an abrupt end to the season for a senior-laden team. Coach Heather Lower felt her team that featured nine seniors was starting to peak at the right time, but had a disastrous Game 2 and could never get over the hump against the Lancers.

“They beat us twice in the regular season. I was hoping that it would be hard for a team to beat us three times in a season,” said Lower. “It is frustrating because when we realized that we were out of (contention) for the league, we turned our focus on the districts. We thought we’d have a chance this year. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

Oakland Christian came out in Game 1 and slowly pulled away from the Crusaders. An 18-14 lead was extended with a 7-5 run at the end of the set, capped by a kill from senior Darcy Johnston.

The Lancers (26-13-5) opened up a big gap in Game 2 and maintained it throughout the set.

In the third game, the Crusaders battled and actually tied the game at 21-21 and again at 23-23, but could never get over the hump.

“We play Oakland Christian so much, you would think that we would have them figured out by now,” added Lower. “We didn’t play well in the second game. We battled them in the third game, but we couldn’t get over the hump.”

The 5-foot-11 Johnston played like a senior on a mission for Oakland Christian and the Crusaders never had an answer at the net for the middle hitter. Johnston finished with 17 kills, 20 digs, nine blocks and an ace for the Lancers, who have only two seniors on their roster.

Sophomore Marcella Compeau, a transfer from Davison Faith Baptist, added eight kills and 22 digs and junior Erin Washington dished out 21 assists setting the volleyball.

The Lancers finished the night a fine 74-for-79 attacking with 37 of those attempts hitting the floor for a kill — a sterling .405 kills percentage.

“I thought that we played well in spots. We didn’t make a lot of mistakes,” said Larned. “Darcy really stepped up tonight to lead us.”

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