Pleasant Grove sweeps county rival Lone Peak

HIGHLAND — The Pleasant Grove Vikings volleyball team is playing on a different plane than everyone else in Utah County right now.

A three-game victory over the consensus No. 2 team in the valley, Lone Peak, in the Knights' gym, showed just how far the competition must come even to put a dent in the Vikings' game this year. They invaded Highland and came away with yet another decisive 25-19, 25-19, 25-19 win over their biggest nemesis.

The Vikings are so far above the competition that it can be tough for the team to stay interested throughout an entire match, but they find ways to keep motivated.

"Our practices are more intense than most of our matches," said Pleasant Grove coach Mike Daniel, who noted that the individual players and the team are still busy working on fundamentals. One of those is serving, at which his team has actually broken state records this year.

Though they only had 10 service aces in the match against Lone Peak, they did record a state record 27 aces against region foe Spanish Fork last week.

They're also hitting the ball out of the gym. Both Hailey Jeppson and Tela Burnett were pounding the ball so hard and at such great angles that Daniel himself couldn't devise a plan to stop them Thursday night.

Jeppson finished with 12 kills, a .375 hitting percentage and two aces for the Vikings. Burnett added eight kills in only 11 sets and rocketed three aces of her own.

Kortney Robinson pounded down nine kills in addition to her own four aces.

"Kortney's jump serve has improved a ton since the last time we played this team," said Daniel. And it showed as the team went on an eight-point run late in game 3 with the ball in her hands.

Though Daniel wasn't completely happy with his defense during the contest, his libero, Morgan Lloyd, did pick up 10 great digs and led the team with terrific passing. He wasn't pleased with the teams' blocking either as they only dropped five blocks on the Knights.

"It was a low blocking total and our worst passing match of the season," he added, which means his team still has improving to do before it gets mired in the state tournament. "But the offense was good tonight."

Though each of the three games unfolded a little differently, they all had one thing in common — a huge run by Pleasant Grove at some point.