6A boys volleyball: Nice Grove runs away from Lone Peak to win inaugural championship

OREM — Nice Grove was the very first crew to compete in a sanctioned boys volleyball match in March.

On Saturday evening, they had been the final crew standing with a trophy.

After a back-and-forth battle of attrition by the primary two units, the Vikings exploded to complete off the Lone Peak Knights 25-22, 23-25, 25-18 and 25-15 Saturday evening on the UCCU Middle.

“We had been simply decided to win in the present day,” center blocker Aki Malietoa mentioned. “That is what bought us the win — we simply educated arduous and simply continued loving this sport.”

Each groups introduced that willpower early; the primary set featured 12 ties and 4 lead adjustments, with Nice Grove scoring the ultimate 3 factors after it was tied 22-22. Lone Peak answered within the second to tie the match 1-1 after the Vikings had tied the set at 20-20 whereas trailing by as many as 5 factors.

However at 9-8 within the third set, Nice Grove head coach Dave Neeley signaled for a timeout.

The message was easy: “Dig deep and battle arduous,” Malietoa mentioned, with Neeley including it was a time to remind the crew that they may “take management” of the match.

The Vikings thus answered with the following 6 factors to make it 15-8, and the match was by no means aggressive once more, whilst Lone Peak head coach Cecil Learn tried desperately to cease the bleeding.

“They simply got here again throughout each timeout believing they’d it,” Neeley mentioned. “They simply introduced it to a different stage this week, bodily, mentally, and emotionally.”

It additionally helps once you’re having enjoyable, like outdoors hitter Brayden Thomas was. Thomas ended the fourth set and the match on a rocket that Lone Peak could not hold alive, triggering a mosh pit on Nice Grove’s aspect of the court docket.

“We simply needed to reel in our setting somewhat bit,” Thomas mentioned. “As soon as we did that, we bought them out of system and created the tempo we wished.”

The group contained in the UCCU Middle — particularly these carrying predominantly Nice Grove blue and white — additionally felt the shift within the tempo halfway by the third.

It reached a fever pitch within the fourth set, when Nice Grove grew it right into a 10-point lead at 20-10 for the primary time all evening and Lone Peak coach Cecil Learn determined to empty the bench in lieu of the deficit.

Quickly sufficient, the followers had been celebrating with the gamers because the trophy was offered.

“There have been a number of occasions all through the match I simply seemed up and smiled (on the followers),” Neeley mentioned. “It is so nice to see our Nice Grove household present up.”

It additionally means extra within the Neeley household, as properly. Dave’s brother, Jonny Neeley, at the moment an assistant coach for BYU girls’s volleyball, started his profession at Nice Grove as an assistant, which Dave Neeley mentioned was the impetus for him to achieve out concerning the head teaching place at Nice Grove.

“These women’ trophies are nonetheless within the trophy case,” he mentioned. “So as to add a brand new one to the trophy case goes to be superior.”

These trophies do not come with out teammates. Malietoa mentioned his teammates, like Thomas and out of doors hitter Tyson Jarvis, are “an important factor” to him, which is smart that he merely calls them “brothers who raise me up and push me to be higher”.

“That is the most effective feeling ever; that is superb,” Thomas mentioned. “We began out with a sweep (of Mountain View), and we got here out on prime within the state.”