Photo by Noah Clooten
The Lake Region State College volleyball team’s season came to an end on Saturday after making it to the Region XIII semifinal.
The Royals beat Dakota College at Bottineau (3-19, 2-10) at home last Wednesday, 3-0, sending them to the Region XIII Tournament in Bismarck. They won 3-1 over Williston State College (7-20, 5-7) — a team they went 1-2 against during the regular season — to stay alive. But they played again on Saturday and lost 3-1 to Bismarck State College (25-4, 11-1), one of the best teams in the conference.
LRSC finished with an overall record of 15-21. The Royals were only 2-10 in conference matches during the regular season, but they played some of their best volleyball towards the season’s culmination.
LRSC beat WSC 25-19 in the first set, then lost the second set 25-21. The Royals took each of the last two sets by a score of 25-18 to win the match, avenging their previous two losses to that same Tetons team.
Lexie Shearer continued her late-season surge with 15 kills in the contest. Breanna Vosberg had nine, while Whitney Rozdeba had eight. Vosberg and Halle Jabs each recorded three aces.
The Royals’ next match came just a few hours later against a powerful BSC team. The Royals played the Mystics evenly in the first set, coming up just short in a 25-23 loss. They emerged on the winning side of another tight set, though, winning 26-24 to even the match at a set apiece.
After that, the Royals ran out of gas, or the Mystics rediscovered the dominant form they’ve put forth all season. BSC won the final two sets 25-16 and 25-13.
No Royal had double-digit kills in the match, but Shearer led the team again with eight. Vosberg, Rozdeba, Sienna Gudnason and Hannah Thiel each recorded six. Thiel also had three aces.
Shearer, a freshman, finished with 265 kills on the season, surpassing Vosberg’s 250. Vosberg was named to the All-Conference Second Team.
Overall, LRSC won seven of its final 10 matches. The 2024 campaign still broke a streak of two consecutive winning seasons.
