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Top competition can't keep Olympic Heights from title

The state's top-ranked team needs three games to defeat host Berkeley Prep and defend its crown.

By JARRETT GUTHRIE

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 7, 2001

A team as good as Orlando Olympic Heights doesn't need much of an edge to sway a match in its favor.

In the third and final game of the Berkeley Prep Premier tournament Saturday, the state's No. 1 team in Class 6A simply strung together seven unanswered points.

The spurt left the host Buccaneers with their first loss of the season and earned Olympic Heights its fourth Premier title in the past five years.

"We come in with a lot of pressure to perform at a higher level. These tournaments motivate the kids," Olympic Heights assistant coach Chris Hogan said. "We came in with some pride and with some fire. They knew that two teams before had won (the tournament) and they didn't want to be the ones that didn't."

The final match took three games.

Olympic Heights won the first game 15-13 before Berkeley Prep took the second 15-9.

In the third game, Olympic Heights defended its championship with a 15-3 win.

Senior Julia Caner, the tournament MVP, contributed five kills in the first game, three on consecutive plays.

"There's always (rivalries) and we've played them all the time," Caner said. "They're a great team. Our team came together really well. This tournament always has a lot of great competition."

In the final game, Olympic Heights controlled the ball, scoring two pairs of aces from juniors Kim Harper and Amanda Sterner and kills from Caner and sophomore Summer Weissing to take control.

"We don't get to see this type of competition very often," Hogan said. "Facing (Berkeley) is always a challenge. We know when we come up here we are going to face some really good teams."

Despite solid blocking up front from eighth-grader Janet Okogbaa and senior all-tournament team members Kayla Mora and Caitlin Reiner, the Bucs were unable to capitalize on their first appearance in the championship match since defeating Tampa Prep in 1995.

"We've been playing really well," said Berkeley Prep coach Randy Dagostino, whose team is ranked No. 2 in the latest Class 2A state poll. "We thought that we would possibly be in this situation.

"We had a 10-6 lead and a 12-8 lead in Game 1 and we weren't able to close it out. We regrouped and played a good second game.

"We need to just go back and make sure we can close out games that we should be closing out."

Also competing Saturday in a consolation match were Tampa Prep and Durant. The teams competed for third place in the silver bracket with Tampa Prep, ranked third in Class 2A, winning 15-7 in a rally-point third game behind three scores from senior all-tournament team member Amber Langston. "I thought the team had a pretty good weekend. It was nice to come back after a well fought loss against Olympic Heights and then come back and play a very good team like Durant and win in our bracket," Tampa Prep coach Paul McAdoo said.

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