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© St. Petersburg Times, published November 9, 2001
LAKE BUENA VISTA -- East Lake and Durant are well-coached teams, and yes, they have produced winning records and playoff appearances.
But mostly what they have are two of the most dominant middle hitters in the game -- East Lake's Nicole Britenriker and Durant's Jenna Jordan.
Both players have size, strength, nimble-footed quickness and ever-developing skills, all of which were on display during Thursday's Class 5A state semifinal match at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex.
The only thing that separated the two was 3 inches and three years of final four experience.
Jordan, a 6-foot-2 senior who has been to the state final four every year of her high school career, outdueled Britenriker, a 5-foot-11 sophomore whose team was in the final four for the first time.
The result was a 15-6, 13-15, 15-13 victory for the Cougars.
By winning, Durant (29-3) advances to Saturday's championship match at 2:30 p.m. The Eagles finish at 29-5.
"You just couldn't ask for a tighter match," Cougars coach Teri Ohme said. "It was really anybody's match at the end. Luckily, we came up with enough plays to win."
After cruising in the first game, Durant struggled in the second and watched a 13-9 lead disappear. Britenriker helped but East Lake's comeback was due to the play of Kelleigh O'Neill. The junior had five kills and capped off the rally with an ace for the final point.
"We all knew what to expect from Nicole," said Ohme, who has many players that played with her on a club team over the summer. "I thought their outside hitters really played well. They put the ball down and played well enough to win."
That's what scared Jordan. Even though she had been to the state final four many times, she has only one title (1999). She said she started thinking it was going to be another season of frustration.
"I was having some really bad flashbacks," Jordan said.
So she decided to do something about it. With the score tied 8-8 in the third, Jordan connected on a solid kill for a sideout that helped the Cougars eventually go up 11-8.
East Lake rallied and tied it at 11-11, but Durant bore down and scored four of the last six points.
Jordan led the Cougars with 16 kills. Britenriker and O'Neill each had 13 kills to lead the Eagles.
"The key is that they've been here many times and we had to get through the nerves and excitement of being here for the first time," East Lake coach Terry Small said. "We came through and that's a testament to our team."
Said Britenriker: "It still hurts. But we know what we can do and we expect to be back here next year."