Lake County gets revenge against Vail Christian boys volleyball with 3-1 win

This might be a bit of a rivalry in the making, folks.

Vail Christian boys volleyball earned it’s first win of the season against Lake County with a 3-1 win in Edwards on March 28. On Tuesday, the Panthers returned the favor, besting the Saints by the same score on their home court.

“You know I think these guys are fantastic,” Vail Christian head coach James Scott said of his opponents after the 25-11, 20-25, 25-11, 25-18 loss. “We had a few of their players join us in the off-season to help promote volleyball west of Golden. So for us to have another team in the vicinity to play against — it starts bringing more awareness to volleyball on this side of the range.”

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Lake County didn’t have the look of a first-year program in the opening set, bursting out to a 4-0 lead. Vail Christian battled back, however, and the bench was fired up when Luis Chairez blocked a Panther spike to make it 5-5. The home team would capture the energy from there, forcing Scott to call a timeout at 15-8. It didn’t do much to slow the Panthers, though. Later, Will Carrier placed a no look left-hand shot down the line perfectly for the 23-11 lead, then ended the set with an enthusiastic kill two points later.

“They have some awesome athletes,” Scott said. At 6-foot-4, Carrier and Elijah Durand posed issues with their lanky athleticism throughout the game.

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In the second set, the soft touch and deft passing of Saints captain setter Mauricio Terrazas helped Vail Christian cruise to a 14-8 lead and close things out from 19-18 to a 25-20 win.

“He stepped up tonight because his job was to run a 5-1 offense where we’ve been running a 6-2 with Kai,” Scott said of Terrazas. “So for him to take on responsibility of setting the entire rotation through and through — it’s not something that we anticipated, but it’s something that he rose to the occasion and did a fantastic job.”

Durand helped fuel a pivotal 7-0 run in the third with two straight aces, propelling the Panthers to a 22-10 lead that only ended when the senior sent a serve into the net. In both the third and final set, Vail Christian struggled to string together consecutive points.

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“You know momentum is something we’re continually trying to find. We did have a few players missing from our roster tonight so we ran a different offense than we usually would, so there was a little bit of adaptation,” Scott said.

“We had some incredible moments, but unfortunately we succumbed to a little bit of a lack of energy and weren’t able to finish and keep everything moving in the direction we wanted to.”

The Saints fell to 3-5 on the year while Lake County improved to 7-5. On April 22, both teams will meet for the rubber match and Scott and company are looking forward to it.

“We’re always going to be thrilled to play these guys,” the coach concluded.