High school volleyball: Flames sweep Tigers in rivalry game

Oct. 20—Lodi and Tokay's big rivalry volleyball game ended in a three-game sweep for Lodi over the Tigers, but both sides saw lots of positives.

For Lodi, the 25-11, 25-16, 25-20 win was a last tuneup before heading into the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs. With the Tri-City Athletic League sending four teams to the postseason, Lodi, which finished 11-13 overall and 6-4 for third place in the league, already had its dance card filled for the playoffs.

For Tokay, the Tigers welcomed a playoff-bound team to their home court, and gave them a fairly close game — something that didn't really happen the first time the two teams played.

"What was going well for us tonight I think was the middle blocking, and that's our two sisters, the Okoreeh sisters (Hannah and Mya)," said Tokay coach Natalia Sitkin. "And I think being able to mentally stay in the game this time. When we played them in Lodi, it was kind of like each game kind of went down. So I think trying to stay in it and play better volleyball against them."

While Tokay has seen improvement in a rebuilding season that it hopes means good things for next year, Lodi has also seen a team coming together to play better volleyball.

"They've definitely improved over the season. We worked with a lot of different lineups in the beginning, and then started falling into more regular lineups with small changes here and there, and the girls have really adapted to that," said Lodi coach Krista Brereton. "They've learned new defensive positions this year as far as where to play, and that has been a little bit new for some of them, and tonight some of them really stepped up and did a great job in that aspect"

This will be Lodi's first time in the playoffs since 2013, when the Flames finished the season 12-10 with a first-round loss. The head coach of that team? Krista Brereton, who took a few years off from 2017-20.

"A lot of these girls, they've played club, they've played in big competitions before," Brereton said. "So you know, playoffs is exciting, but a lot of them have been in big type competitions and lots of different places. Most of them are used to that kind of stuff already."

Wednesday's match had a fun rivalry atmosphere to it, with a packed house at The Jungle to see the cross-town rivals play. Lodi took the opening set easily, pulling away on a seven-point stretch with Grace Culler serving.

Tokay kept the second set closer, playing to a 10-9 lead before Lodi went on a 9-2 run to build separation.

"They always bring energy and excitement to these games," Brereton said. "It's a lot of fun to see all the people, and they know almost everybody, they know the fans from the other team, they know the girls on the other side, and it's just fun. It's fun, competitive energy from both sides."

The match got a little more tense in the third set when Lodi wasn't able to separate. The teams traded the lead early on, and even though Lodi took the lead for good with a Julianna Hammer kill to make it 13-12, the Tigers never fell more than two or three points behind.

After Hammer's spike, Lodi built a few points, only to have the run stopped by a kill from Claire Whittock. Lodi built a 16-13 lead, but again was stopped by a tip kill from Hannah Okoreeh. But the Tigers ran out of time, and a few timely blocks from Hammer and Davina Amen, and kills from Karis Mann and Amen, helped the Flames put the game away.

Hammer led the Flames with 12 kills, Avery Peterson had 7, and Culler had 6. Culler and Mariah Azua each had a pair of aces, Hammer had 3 blocks, Mayer had 2 blocks, Mann and Lacee Kyles each had 9 digs, and Culler had 8 digs.

For Tokay, Hannah Okoreeh had 6 kills, 5 blocks and 5 digs, Whittock had 4 kills and 4 digs, Alice Lopefrido had 6 digs, Idalys Aguirre had 4 digs, Kate Cook had 2 blocks, Karina Ochoa had 2 kills and 15 digs, and Maggie Burford had 2 kills, 8 digs and 14 assists.

"Toward the end of the season we started to move a little bit more, there was more cohesiveness on the court, there was just more jelling together that was happening," Tokay's Sitkin said. "And that was good. But this season's a big rebuilding year for us. We've got some young players that are starters."

With two sophomore and a freshman in the starting lineup, Tokay will have an experienced core when the team returns to play next summer. Sitkin said she's seen a lot of positive signs over the second half of league play, especially when it comes to playing stronger as the match goes on.

"We didn't beat a lot of teams this year, but we didn't get blown out of the water either," Sitkin said. "That was encouraging, even though we couldn't pull off a win."

Now it's Lodi's turn to put itself to the test. Playoff brackets will be released soon by the section.

"It's attributed to all the girls and their hard work this season," Brereton said about making the playoffs. "It's awesome. We talked about it at our last practice. It's exciting, it's been a long time."

WATER POLO

Varsity boys — Lodi 15, Tracy 3

Nathan Larson led the Flames with 5 goals in Wednesday's victory, which put Lodi at 12-9 overall and 7-2 in the TCAL.

Guy Hein, Blake Ehlers, Korben Reed and Jack Stilwell scored 2 goals each, Anthony Celli and Josh Devlin had 1 each, and in the cage, Evan Peterson blocked 11 shots and snagged a steal.

Lodi will finish the regular season on Tuesday against Tokay.

Varsity girls — Lodi 11, Tracy 1

The Flames scored a near-shutout over the Bulldogs on Wednesday, with Kylie Richardson and Abigail Rusch sharing time at goalkeeper. Rusch finished with 7 blocks, and Richardson had 6.

Offensively, Shelby Richardson and Emily Engle each scored 4 goals, with a pair of assists from Engle, Morgan Vice had 2 goals and 2 assists, Laine Woodard had a goal and 2 assists, and Holly Wilson and Ava Sepulveda each tallied an assist.

JV boys — Lodi 20, Tracy 7

The Flames wrapped up their season with Wednesday's victory to finish 22-3 overall and 9-1 in the TCAL. Ethan Wise, Nick Gaona, Matteo Kovach and Caden Zicari each scored 3 goals, Temple Marcee and Anthony Cassella had 2 goals each, and Porter Campbell, Luke Burns, Finn Moran and Ryder Waheham each scored 1.

Goalkeeper Owen Daley had 3 blocks, and Shawn Selling had 2 blocks and a steal.

VOLLEYBALL

JV — Lodi 2, Tokay 0

The Flames improved to 17-0, and finished the TCAL season 10-0 with Wednesday's 25-10, 25-7 victory over Tokay.

Kamdyn Scheiss led Lodi with 8 kills and added a pair of digs, Jolie Leggitt had 4 kills, 3 aces and 4 digs, Felicity Johnson had 3 kills, 7 aces and 2 digs, and Sam Mayer had 2 kills and 2 digs.