For the second consecutive season, the Lewis Central Titans stand in the way of playoff advancement for the ADM volleyball team. Understandably, revenge could be on the minds of Tiger players.
The Titans and Tigers hooked up in last year’s Class 4A, Region 3 finals, when ADM pushed Lewis Central to the brink. The Tigers held a 2-to-1 lead in sets, only to have the Titans rally for a five-set victory and snatch a state tournament berth from ADM.
Those two teams meet again in the postseason, as ADM and Lewis Central will square off in regional semifinal play at 7 p.m. Thursday night at the Titans’ gym in Council Bluffs.
Unforced errors were the Tigers’ downfall in last year’s match. ADM came out tight and lost the fourth set by 12 points, and appeared even more nervous in the fifth set, which Lewis Central won 15-6, to clinch the match.
ADM, however, showed its own comeback ability in the regular season finale win over Carroll, when the Tigers (20-16) rallied from down 2-sets-to-1 and warded off several match points to beat Carroll in five sets.
“That gives us a lot of confidence, just knowing that we can pull it out at the end and be successful even in the close games,” said ADM senior Shannon Jones. “Those games give us way more momentum.”
The youthful Tigers will be considered significant underdogs against sixth-ranked Lewis Central (30-5), a role they’re familiar with playing. ADM head coach Mary Beth Scott said she likes playing the underdog role, but at the same time, said her group performs well when she applies pressure by creating a goal — such as when she challenged her players to go 5-1 at the Knoxville tournament Oct. 17, and they delivered.
As for making sure her players don’t start to play tight should they find themselves with a late lead against the Titans?
“I find with this group, you’ve got to [have a] balance, just keep encouraging them,” Scott said. “I think the Carroll game is going to help them realize, ‘Hey, we can go five (sets) and we can still win in five,’ and being down 14-11 in the fifth game, that really showed some character and we came out and won that game.
“So we’ve set ourselves up to keep progressing and so all we can do is go out and play the game and hope that we maintain the ability to work hard and not get down on ourselves.”