It was a sweep, but it wasn’t easy.
Lisbon beat Jesup 25-19, 25-20, 28-26, in a Class 2A regional quarterfinal on Wednesday, Oct. 18, in Lisbon.
Jesup finished 11th in the conference tournament of the North Iowa Cedar League, which is stacked.
“They’ve got a nice ballclub,” Lisbon Coach Lance Kamaus said. “We knew we’d have to play well.”
Lisbon (28-6) managed to put together some big runs in the first two sets, and fought off match point twice in the third set.
“They kept coming,” Kamaus said. “We knew they probably would. It was good to win.”
The difference for the Lions was top-notch passing and tough serving.
“Our serving kept pushing them back,” Kamaus said. “They were having to push it over to us, and it kept them out of system quite a bit.”
Addy Happel was strong on serve receive (converting 19 of 20 attempts into attacks), and also finished with a team-high 16 digs.
“Any time they served at Addy, we were able to run our offense,” Kamaus said.
Ava Czarencki led the offense with 25 kills and Mykala Luzum-Selmon added 13 kills. Kaitlynn Hasselbusch had 41 assists.
Both teams hit .345 as a team. Jesup (18-18) was led by Sara Mead and Isabel Weber with 11 kills each.
On Monday, Oct. 23, Lisbon played West Branch (17-16) in a regional semifinal. The Bears advanced by upsetting No. 14 Regina 20-25, 25-23, 25-27, 25-19, 15-8.
“They don’t ‘wow’ you with one kid,” Kamaus said. “They play really good defense and make it hard to get a ball down.”
The 2A regional final was Wednesday, Oct. 25, against the winner of No. 4 Denver (32-10) and Waterloo Columbus (19-23). Those matches will be in next week’s Sun.
The State Tournament is Monday, Oct. 30 to Thursday, Nov. 2 at Xtream Arena in Coralville.