Bear Lake beats Onekama in three

BUCKLEY — Bear Lake embraced the bye it drew for this week’s Class D district tournament, and in Wednesday’s semifinal, showed zero signs of rust from the rest.

The Lakers swept county rival Onekama 25-22, 25-22, 25-16 to advance to Friday’s championship against Brethren at Buckley, starting at 7 p.m.

“We talked a lot more than we have been the last couple weeks,” said Bear Lake’s Emileigh Ferguson, who had 12 kills, seven points, four aces, and two blocks. “We could have done better, and I’m not saying we played bad, but we know we can do better.”

And the junior said her team plans to when playing for the title when they next take the court.

“We definitely have to be on our toes,” she said. “We have to block, and we’ve got to talk to each other.”

Against Onekama, the Lakers were never comfortable with the lead in the first two sets as the Portagers stayed right on their heels.

“I think it’s always a mental game when we play Onekama, just because they are our rivals,” Bear Lake coach Amy Falk said, “so we never really know what to expect when we go in.”

After the pair of identical scores to set up for the sweep, Bear Lake looked even stronger down the stretch of the third.

“When we pass to the setter, we can hit,” Falk said. “Our hits were there, our servers were there, our focus is still on passing.

“It was better tonight than it has been.”

Bear Lake senior Breanna Fink had 10 points in the match to go with three assists while Hannah Harrington had eight points and five kills and McKenna Fink had six points, two aces, four assists and three kills.

Despite falling in three games, there wasn’t that much separation in the scores and the play, according to Portagers coach Sherri Slater.

“When I look at it, with scores that close, I don’t know that there was that big of a difference,” she said. “We of course had some unforced errors, but they did as well.

Onekama’s Kaylan Fitch gets a dig on Wednesday. (Dylan Savela/News Advocate)

“I thought there was two evenly- matched teams out there and the match could have easily gone the other way.”

Onekama’s Anna Brown led the way with a solid all-around game with 15 points and 15 assists with five digs. Teammate Alexis Tribfelner had 11 points, seven digs, and five kills; Kelly Koon had 10 points, 11 digs, and four kills; and Emily Bergren had eight points, 11 digs, and four kills.

The Portagers were coming off a district quarterfinal victory heading into Wednesday night, and both matches proved to Slater how much the team has improved through the course of the season.

“After Monday’s match and by the end of this match, I definitely can say they’ve brought their game up to where we’d like to see it,” she explained. “And that’s what I told them in the locker room, that ‘I’m very proud of how you progressed throughout this year,’ because this is not how we looked at the start of it.

“Their teamwork, and their skills have improved exponentially.”

October 31, 2012

Posted by Dylan Savela, Manistee News Advocate on-line