St. Thomas Aquinas volleyball ousts Lourdes for second year in a row to return to state
Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas is accustomed to facing adversity on the path to the state girls’ volleyball final four.
A year ago, inexperience led to a sub.-500 start after the Raiders’ first 20 matches.
This season, injuries to two of their top players challenged Aquinas as it looked to stay among the top teams in the state.
For the second consecutive season, none of it derailed the Raiders.
Led by juniors Mikayla Porter and Zori Brown, Aquinas withstood a tough challenge from visiting Miami Lourdes Academy, but secured a 25-21, 21-25, 25-15, 25-20 victory at home in the Region 4-6A final on Wednesday night.
Aquinas (25-3), the top-ranked team in Class 6A, eliminated Lourdes (21-8) in that round for the second consecutive season and advanced to the state semifinals where it will face Valrico Bloomingdale next Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Polk State College in Winter Haven.
The Raiders are seeking their seventh state championship and made it to the state semifinals for the 18th time in program history.
“We started rough last year, but we told ourselves this season we would start strong,” Brown said. “We’re so happy to head back to state and this is amazing for us because we faced so much adversity this year.”
Brown totaled 10 kills and Porter paced the Raiders with her setting, serving and defense as she finished with 15 assists, 14 digs and five aces.
Junior setter Malia Brooks had 17 assists, junior libero Tameary Wardlaw had nine digs, senior Sydney Van Cott had seven kills and two blocks and senior Kyleigh Shelton had three blocks. Halley Tang also had four aces.
The range of options for Aquinas is what longtime coach Lisa Zielinski said kept the team on course despite injuries to Brown and senior Zoe Taylor, who missed a month with an injury during the season.
“We had Zoe out for a while and Zori out at the beginning, but luckily we had some depth,” Zielinski said. “Sydney Guerrier, a sophomore, helped us out tremendously throughout most of the season. She’s a stud.
“We’ve had some adversity and ups and downs and we finally got everybody back. Most teams are clicking right now and I’m not saying we’re not, but we went a little back and forth all year when we were missing people.”
The teams dueled to a draw after two sets as each attacked on serve aggressively and often scored aces.
As the match went on, Aquinas’ defense improved as did its serve-receive game, allowing the Raiders to take control of the third set early and break open a close fourth with an 8-1 surge that gave them a 21-15 edge.
“I thought we served really tough and they did too. You could see whenever either of us went on one of our runs it came from scoring on the serve,” Zielinski said. “We started to block better and pick up balls better after the second game.”
Both Olivia Marrero and Jenna Acosta’s pinpoint serves kept the Bobcats in the match and leveled it after winning the second set.
But Aquinas continued to attack Lourdes’ back row with aggressive serves that would either score points or knock the Bobcats out of position to put together scoring chances.
“I thought our passing broke down and they did a good job serving against our seams really well,” Lourdes coach Pedro Penate said. “The serve-receive is always crucial in a match like this. We couldn’t be as aggressive as we normally are because we couldn’t pass as well.”
Zielinski was happy with the performance overall, but emphasized the need for more consistent play from her team if it is to come away with a championship next week.
“We wanted to serve aggressively, but we can’t keep making so many communication errors,” Zielinski said. “We can’t have those things continue to happen moving forward.”
For Lourdes, the goal will be to regroup around a roster that is expected to return 15 of its 17 players to make another run at what would be the school’s first trip to state next season. Penate felt the road environment his team faced at Aquinas was something his team needed to face more often to prepare them for such a moment.
“I think they learned how to play in an environment where they’re facing adversity,” Penate said. “They’ll grow and get better from this.”
This story was originally published November 1, 2023 at 10:56 PM.
