(Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune) Pleasant Grove's Ryley Daniel (25) dives for the ball during the volleyball match at Lone Peak High School Tuesday, September 5, 2017.
Highland • If it seems like five days into September is a tad early to start region volleyball matches, you just might be right.
And technically a matchup between Nos. 1 and 2 in Class 6A won’t count in league standings, but from the perspective of top-ranked Lone Peak and visiting Pleasant Grove, it’s never too early to play the best possible opponents as often as possible.
In a rematch of the Class 5A state championship contest from last year, the defending champion Knights held home court and connected the first jab of what may be several punches between the two teams.
Lone Peak beat Pleasant Grove 25-22, 25-20, 25-19 and actually may have exceeded expectations this early in the season.
“We just have to have a shark mentality. We’re always hungry, always wanting more,” said Knights junior middle Kennedi Boyd, who finished with five kills and a pair of blocks. “We love competition. We want to play PG as much as we can.”
“For us, to get an extra non-region match against Pleasant Grove is awesome,” Lone Peak coach Reed Carlson said. “You can’t find better competition. We would play them a 100 times this season if we could because that’s the best competition around.”
LONE PEAK 3, PLEASANT GROVE 0 <br>• Madi Robinson scores a dozen kills to lead Lone Peak, while fellow outside hitter Tasia Farmer adds nine. <br>• Pleasant Grove's Heather Gneiting leads the Vikings with 12 kills, while Kazna Tarawhiti and Megan Sintay each puts down nine. <br>• It is the first meeting between the teams since the Class 5A state championship last fall, which Lone Peak won in five.
Lone Peak (3-0) was consistent throughout its rotation and was led by the outside hitting pair of Madi Robinson and Tasia Farmer. Robinson swatted a dozen kills and, when she rotated off the front row, Farmer was hardly a drop-off. She had nine kills.
“When those two are on and they see the court well, for their all-around game, I think it would be really hard for anyone to boast a better duo than them,” Carlson said. “I’m biased because I think they’re the best. I think most kids are going to struggle seeing that matchup day-in and day-out.”
“I feel like we’re both super strong,” Farmer said. “We just have to implement what we know how to do. We have to do what we know we’re capable of.”
Heather Gneiting paced Pleasant Grove (2-1) with 12 kills, while outside hitter Kazna Tarawhiti and opposite Megan Sintay both had nine winners.
An ace by Tarawhiti cut the first-set deficit to one late at 23-22, but a subsequent miscommunication on a set got Lone Peak to game point. That was clinched on a block by middle Autumn Spafford, who finished with four kills as well.
In the second set, kills by Boyd and Robinson kicked off a 5-1 run that enabled the Knights to pull away from a 19-17 advantage.
The third set saw the visiting Vikings up 18-17 when Lone Peak went on an 8-1 run to finish the match — clinched on a kill by setter Jacquelyn Langhaim.
Pleasant Grove coach Allyce Jones, like Carlson, was glad to get in some time against top-flight competition early in the slate.
“Everything’s fixable. I wanted to play them in preseason to play some good volleyball,” Jones said. “That’s just what we wanted.”