Lewis Central outlasts Marion in 5

CEDAR RAPIDS - For Lewis Central, it was a glorious breakthrough.

For the Marion Indians, it was a painful cycle.

Surge, relax, repeat.

The fourth-ranked Indians committed seven attacking errors in the fifth set, and No. 6 Lewis Central picked up its first state volleyball tournament win, 13-25, 25-22, 25-20, 18-25, 15-10, in Tuesday's Class 4A quarterfinal at the U.S. Cellular Center.

'Sometimes, it almost comes too easy,” Marion Coach Roxanne Paulsen said. 'It was that way in the fourth set; we got way ahead (15-1), and we relaxed and gave them the momentum back.”

Lewis Central (33-5) advances to the semifinals for the first time in three tries. The Titans face No. 1 West Delaware (47-2) at noon Thursday.

'First win here ... that's cool,” said Titans Coach Mike Bond. 'This is a great group of girls to make that happen.”

The teams took turns making runs and making mistakes. Marion (31-9) made the errors at the end.

That enabled the Titans to close out the fifth set with a 6-1 run, breaking a 9-all tie.

The Titans were able to make hay when Marion's Isabella Sade wasn't peppering them from the other side of the net. A junior Nebraska-Omaha commit, Sade collected 20 kills.

'We just wanted to limit their runs when she was in the front row,” Bond said. 'For the most part, we were able to do that.”

They weren't in the early stages of Game 4, when Marion scored 14 straight points for a 15-1 advantage. It was 22-9 when the Titans went on their own run that fell short, but flipped momentum.

'We started getting our passes up and picking our energy back up,” said Lewis Central's Madison Paulsen.

Sade said, '(Lewis Central) is a really good team. But I think we let our guard down a couple times.”

Marion sprinted through the first set, then Lewis Central grabbed the next two. Paulsen smacked three kills and Kaci Hohenthaner served a pair of aces as the Titans ended Game 3 with a 6-0 run.

Olivia Frazier added 14 kills for the Indians. Caitlyn Smith collected 49 assists.

Paulsen notched 12 kills for Lewis Central. Emily Albertsen added 10.

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