Lincoln girls volleyball sweeps Grant to take PIL lead

GOOSE HOLLOW – After losing to Grant in four sets back on Sept. 23, Lincoln High School girls volleyball junior Lily Mather knew her Cardinals had more in them.

They left the Generals floor knowing that they left some plays out there in the nonleague matchup.

On Thursday, Oct. 16, the Cardinals got their shot at revenge, and this time they left no doubt.

Lincoln swept Grant 3-0 (25-14, 25-22, 25-19) to move to 17-7 overall and to 6-0 the PIL, leaving the Cardinals alone in first.

“That was just amazing, I’m so proud of our team,” Mather said. “For our first team bonding event, we made vision boards of our goals for the season. And our biggest goal out of everything was to beat Grant, we hadn’t done that in so long.

“We knew that if we put all of our effort into it, we could take them in three and it’s so rewarding to see everyone so happy.”

MORE PHOTOS: Head to the link here to see the full slate of photos from Grant vs. Lincoln girls volleyball

Mather is right, it had been awhile since the Cardinals last defeated the Generals (16-7, 5-1 PIL). Lincoln did beat Grant twice in the unofficial COVID 2020 season, but the last one on the actual record book was Oct. 24, 2019, meaning a streak of nine consecutive losses.

That’s all in the past now as the Cardinals are proving to be not just the top team in the PIL, but one of the best in the state.

“The energy from all the players, the bench, everyone on the team,” first-year Lincoln head coach Charlie Rosa said. “We just had the click and combination today. No complaints from our side over here.”

From the first serve, Lincoln was giving Grant a heavy dose of Mather as the junior outside hitter had her swing locked in from the get-go.

Early in the first set, Mather found some holes and the Generals adjusted, which only opened up the middle for Cardinals junior Kathryn Urquhart to start swinging away.

However, the Cardinals found themselves down 12-10 in the first. But the junior duo helped spark a 6-0 run to go up 16-12 and never looked back as Mather had three more kills to close out the first set 25-14.

In the second set, Grant jumped out ahead 8-0 before a slow comeback from Lincoln was completed to tie the set at 19.

Mather continued to dominate, this time by hammering the near sideline as the Generals couldn’t adjust.

“I kept telling her, ‘Keep going line right now because they’re not adjusting,’” Rosa said. “She did it and a couple times she needed to adjust a little bit and she did it. With (Urquhart) also, they did come in double blocking her so then we adjusted that and that’s why she was going a little more cross and getting some points there.

“(Mather) was our main, go-to person today. I told our setters, ‘Just go to (Mather) today.’”

With the second set now tied at 20, Lincoln won five of the next points to take it 25-22 thanks to a block and a kill from Urquhart to help seal it.

In the third, Lincoln went up 9-3 and held off a Grant rally that got the lead down to 15-14 Cardinals, but Urquhart got a block that was followed by two Generals errors and a kill from Mather to pump the lead back up to five.

Down the stretch, Mather closed it out with three more kills and a block to give Lincoln the 25-19 third set win and the match.

“I really enjoyed hitting behind that set,” Mather said with a smile of her attacks down the line. “One thing we’re really working on is pulling the block and having (Urquhart) approach and fake out so I don’t have as big of a block and that’s been really helpful. It’s truly showing how much our team is working together to set everyone up.”

For the match, Mather finished with 20 kills to lead the Cardinals while Urquhart had five kills, four blocks and an ace.

While those two worked at the net, the back row was impenetrable despite some big hitters on the Grant side in sophomore Osa Olsgaard, junior Millie Williams and freshman Eloise Armstrong.

The trio certainly got their swings and blocks in at times, but for most of the match the Cardinals were able to dig them up or swing through the block for points.

“We’ve been working a lot with our back row, we had a little bit of struggles toward the beginning (of the season),” Rosa said. “They’ve been stepping up, we’ve been doing some drills to help them get to the ball faster, reading the other side, reading the hitters and servers. We started doing that today and everything fell together.”

While it’s not the final league match of the season, the Cardinals are in good shape to take home their first PIL crown since 2018.

Left on the schedule is a road match at 6 p.m. Oct. 21 against Roosevelt, followed by the final match of the season at home at 6 p.m. Oct. 23 against Jefferson.

With the first goal of beating Grant complete, next is closing out the league title before moving on to the postseason.

But after a performance like that, the Cardinals are flying high and believing it could just be the beginning of a special end to the season.

“We’re not done, we still have playoffs, we still have those games we need to win in order to take the PIL,” Mather said. “I think this is such a huge confidence boost of knowing exactly what we’re capable of and how hard we can battle. I’m so excited to see what we can do in the next two games and during playoffs.”