Becky Regan / bregan@tahoedailytribune
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — Under slightly smoky skies, the Lowry, Elko and Fernley girls golf teams picked up right where they left off last season at the South Lake Tahoe season opener on Wednesday.
Lowry took top honors with a team score of 357. Elko posted a collective 364 for second, and Fernley a 369 for third. No big surprise in the top three. The same golf programs led the league last year, but there were a few unexpected finishes in the first tournament of the season.
South Tahoe, which didn’t have enough girls to qualify for team scoring last year, snuck into fourth place (411) in front of Spring Creek (420), Fallon (462) and Dayton (526).
Individually, Fernley’s Brittany Evans led the field with a 72. Elko’s Kaily Beatty wasn’t far behind with a 75, and Mikal Jerman of Spring Creek posted an 80.
Lowry didn’t post the best individual scores of the day, but captured first with its strong collective effort. Lowry’s top four all posted scores under 100. Alyssa Dendary shot an 84, Caitlin Orr an 89, Elise Rose a 91 and Ning Landt a 93.
For Dayton, Kassandra Acosta led the way with a 122, Taylor Ingersoll shot a 123, Samantha Cassinelli scored a 127, Kylie Crosby shot a 154 and Katelyn Gray carded a 156.
Douglas edges South Tahoe
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — There were few free points in Wednesday night’s volleyball game.
Every tick on the scoreboard was earned with punishing sprawls, intelligent tips and ridiculous saves, but in the end Douglas earned just a few more ticks. In a best-of-five match, Douglas edged South Tahoe 3-1.
South Tahoe took the first game 25-6, but the Tigers roared back 25-15, 25-19 and finally 25-23 for the non-league win.
“There’s still lots of kinks to work out. We’ve got a lot of young girls,” Douglas coach Suzi Townsell said,” but we’ve got some depth and when the core wasn’t working they came off the bench and played well.”
After a slow start, the Tigers looked like a different team in Game 2. They quickly built a commanding 10-3 lead and lengthened it to 22-12 with strong defense and well-placed tips. Ariah Barth delivered the final blow for the 25-15 win to tie the match at 1-1.
Game 3 was a back-and-forth battle and both teams surged back to tie the game seven times. Barth again came through with some devastating kills along with Katie McCullough, and in the end the Tigers were awarded a 25-19 win courtesy of two Vikings’ fouls.
By all rights, the final game looked like it belonged to the Vikings. South Tahoe jumped out to a 7-point lead, but the Tigers kept chipping away. With the Vikings up 17-13, Nikki Hamada stepped up to the service line and delivered six unanswered points, capped by two aces. A tip from McCullough gave Douglas the final edge.
McCullough led the Tigers with 14 kills. Barth collected 11 kills, and Jessa Gansberg added nine kills. Hamada tore up the service line with 14 points.