History was made on Saturday as Clarkston’s spikers won the sixth annual Beast of the East tournament. It was the first time the Lady Wolves won the event.
“It was our focus this week,” said Clarkston Varsity Volleyball Coach Kelly Pinner. “I know the girls were very excited and proud of themselves they were No. 1 in the state and I said ‘there are reasons to be proud of it, but you will have to prove it on the court on Saturday.’ They did a good job on staying focused and understanding if they are the top team in the state these are moments where you’ve got to turn around and show people you are.”
They went 7-0 for the day after beating Plymouth, Livonia Stevenson and Rockford in two games each during pool play.
Sixteen teams made it to the brackets for the championship and along the way the Lady Wolves beat Grosse Point South in two games. They headed into the quarterfinals where they beat Marian, 25-15 and 25-20.
Next was North Branch in the semifinals. Clarkston the first game 25-16 but came back to win the next two games 25-22 and 16-6 to move on to the championship round.
They faced off with Bedford in the final round. They lost the close first game, 26-24. Then, came back to win the last two games.
“Being able to put together seven matches in a row and going 7-0 it is a great very impressive performance,” Pinner added. “It was definitely a confidence booster. They now know they can compete against anyone and it will give them more drive as they play the rest of the year.”
For the day Taylor Dellinger had 73 kills and Abbey Malinowski had 67 kills. Ashley Schwartz had ten aces and 90 digs and Emily Malinowski had 150 assists.
The Lady Wolves finished their league play on Oct. 14 with a 3-0 win over Oxford (25-15, 25-22, 25-13). The win in the OAA Red put the girls undefeated in the league to win the championship for the eighth consecutive year.
“I thought we were going to have a tough time with it this year with Lake Orion being an outstanding team and Seaholm has been putting together performance and performance all year long and winning tournaments,” said Pinner. “I knew those two opponents could easily be stoppers for us. Winning those two matches were big. Winning the league is one of our goals every year. The girls did a good job of staying focused for those. It’s a great thing for our team and our program to have the league championship every year. It gives us some momentum into the post season.”
Dellinger and Abbey both had 15 kills each and Schwartz had 19 digs.