Lakewood volleyball coach Liz Armbrustmacher best described the gravity of the Tigers’ 3-0 sweep Friday of rival Wheat Ridge.
“In all my years of coaching, I would have to say that’s the most fun I have had coaching a match in my whole entire life,” Armbrustmacher said. “Everybody was clicking and when the ball went out of system, we put it back in play without freaking out.
“They just were solid tonight.”
Lakewood’s performance in the Class 5A Jeffco League opener for both teams was about as constant as the deafening roar cranking from the student sections in Lakewood’s gym witnessing the 25-22, 26-24, 25-20 thriller.
The Farmers, led by standouts such as senior setter Shallana Baillargeon and senior hitter Cecella Vollmer, were looking to match last year’s 3-0 win over Lakewood. But the Tigers had different ideas.
After five different Lakewood players notched kills in the first win, the Wheat Ridge fans shouted “2-0” at the Tigers in reference to the home school’s winless football team.
It wasn’t long before the Tigers’ faithful were responding with the same chant in reference to the predicament of the Farmers volleyball team on the court.
The Farmers tried to recapture the momentum in the second game as they scrapped to knot the contest at 24 after trailing late by three points. A Wheat Ridge kill attempt that bounced out of bounds followed by a dagger at the Lakewood net from junior hitter Julia Hansen gave the Tigers the two-point margin of victory.
Junior hitter Lexi Hockenberry, who led all players with 15 kills, added four in the second game.
“Getting the second game was huge because we set the tone in the first game,” Hockenberry said. “If they had won the second game, it would have been a lot harder.”
The 2-0 Lakewood advantage seemed to deflate the Farmers who fell behind 4-0 and trailed by at least three points after the mid-point of the contest.
The Farmers, losers of three straight entering the contest, were trying to get a good league start after opening with a 4-3 record.
Instead, Wheat Ridge found itself swamped as much in miscommunication and errors as they were the drones of the Lakewood fans that barked almost every time a Farmer touched the ball.
“You could not hear no matter how bad you were screaming,” Wheat Ridge coach Donna Ward said. “Maybe if it had been later in the season when we had more matches under our belt and knew each other’s tendencies, we could have communicated better.
“But you couldn’t hear.”