No. 1 Central Lyon escapes

CEDAR RAPIDS - Yes, Ashley Boer admitted. She was nervous.

But her team from Central Lyon was the more composed team at the end.

The top-ranked Lions scored seven of the last nine points - six of them on LeMars Gehlen errors - and outlasted the Jays in a Class 1A five-set quarterfinal thriller (25-13, 22-25, 25-22, 22-25, 15-12) at the state volleyball tournament Wednesday night at the U.S. Cellular Center.

'I was OK until warmups. Then I got pretty nervous,” Boer said. 'But we've been in these positions before, and we didn't let it faze us.”

The Lions (33-5) will tangle with No. 4 Sidney (33-1) in a semifinal at 6 p.m. Thursday. The Cowgirls swept Springville on Wednesday in their state debut.

Gehlen finished 29-11. The Jays overcame a 16-9 fourth-set deficit to force Game 5, and had the upper hand in the finale at 10-8 before mistakes did them in.

'We won the fourth and I thought we were in a good place,” Gehlen Coach Mike Meyer said. 'Then I thought it might be a matter of who could relax and play.”

Central Lyon scored five in a row for a 13-10 advantage, then the teams played sideout volleyball the rest of the way.

'We just came together and gave it our all,” said Central Lyon's Mattie Knobloch, who led the Lions with 16 kills.

Freshman Katie Peters and senior Becca Konz paced Gehlen with 15 kills apiece.

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