High school volleyball: Knights outlast Cavemen in five-game thriller

AMERICAN FORK — An old rivalry was reborn from the ashes of the American Fork versus Lone Peak strife of old on the volleyball court Tuesday night.

Though the Knights have dominated the Cavemen for the past six years without allowing American Fork to even sniff a victory, the same was not true of the match between the two schools in their first meeting of Region 4 play.

Though the Knights still came away victorious, American Fork took the school to the north to the wire and beyond as the two teams battled through five tight games and some extra points in the fifth game before Lone Peak finally snagged the intense victory, 25-16, 22-25, 25-27, 25-16, 20-18.

"American Fork has improved. They're a lot more consistent and handle the ball very well," said Lone Peak coach Deanna Meyer of her region rivals.

Though she noted that her team was a little timid in the second and third games, and came out more aggressively in the later stages of the match, Meyer agreed that Region 4 is providing some very tough volleyball all the way through.

Meyer credits much of the victory to middle Whitney Johnson, saying, "She made some great defensive plays that brought confidence to the team. She did her job. We kept her in on the back row because she kept making plays."

All of Johnson's hard work and team leadership didn't necessarily show up in the stat box, but the hustle provided a much-needed spark and some real point saves for the Knights. Johnson finished with nine kills, three blocks and an ace in the match.

Ashlan Rogers had a team-high 17 kills, and Cami Richan finished with 10 kills and 15 digs. Chloe Jarema was the fourth Knight with a large kill total as she pounded down 10 kills on the night. Kix Adolpho added four aces and 25 assists in the match.

The Knights came out of the box strong with a huge lead early in the match and the easy 25-16 victory in the first game.

But the Cavemen weren't about to go down quietly, as they allowed Lone Peak another large lead at the start of Game 2 but came back to even things up at 15-15 and at 20-20 before finally coming up with the victory at 25-22 after Makenzie Moea'i dug a ball off the ground that slid right over the net and landed on the line on the Knights' side to give the Cavemen game point.

The two teams fought through 14 ties in Game 3 before the Cavemen finally finished things off on a kill by Emilee Crawley and a big block from Hayley Su'a-Filo and Alise Larsen.