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Seaholm cruises past Groves, advances to regional final
Bloomfield Hills – Birmingham Seaholm is on a mission this postseason and that mission is simple; advance to Battle Creek.
So on Tuesday night as the Maples faced rival Groves in the regional semifinal, it was business as usual for Seaholm, as it cruised to a convincing sweep, 25-9, 25-17 and 25-12 to advance to the regional final.
In the regional final, Seaholm will face Farmington Hills Mercy, which topped Livonia Churchill in the second regional semifinal of the night at Bloomfield Hills Marian high school.
“We played Groves a couple of weeks ago and it’s always a good match, but we kind of knew that they were a little outmatched and we knew that if we put in the work, we’d be able to come away with a win,” said Seaholm coach Heather Lippert. “Getting to Thursday is where we want to be, tonight was not at all like last Friday (District Final win over Birmingham Marian), but it’s a totally different team, we’re continuing to work on being consistent, preparing ourselves for Thursday, because Mercy’s a completely different style of play.”
In the first set, Seaholm held a narrow 7-4 lead early on, but caught fire shortly after, netting 18 of the final 23 points of the set to take a comfortable 25-9 win heading to game two.
In the second set, Groves responded early, jumping out to an 11-8 lead, but Seaholm wouldn’t trail for much longer.
The Maples took a 12-11 lead shortly after as a Lauren McCleod kill would put Seaholm on top and the Maples would later extend their lead to 23-16 after a Kelsey Loeffler kill and would cruise to a 25-17 win in game two.
Lippert said that she feels her team has had a tendency to coast this season after strong performances in game one, which is what the Maples did early in game two, but bounced back after a slow start to jump out to a 2-0 lead heading to game three.
“Sometimes they tend to coast, which we’re really not big fans of,” she said. “Sometimes they need a little bit more of a fire underneath them to take care of business. Like in the second set, we were way more relaxed on serving, we were running people over and we just kind of lost focus. Sometimes, it’s really hard for us to do really well in the first set and in the second set come out with that same fire.”
Seaholm picked up where it left off in the third and final game as the Maples stormed out of the gates to take a 9-1 lead and after an Anna Stachler kill put her extended her team’s lead to 20-8, the Maples would take game three, 25-12.
