Seton tops Queen Creek in battle of D-III, D-II VB titans

October 19, 2011 by Les Willsey, AZPreps365


Seton Catholic's final regular-season home volleyball match Wednesday night was one coach James Felton looked forward to.

His Sentinels have marched through their Division III power-point game schedule with only one tiny nick -- a 3-1 victory in the early going over Williams Field. Other than that, it's been all sweeps for the three-time defending champs (4A-II).

Division II Queen Creek, one of the top teams in D-II, was primed to give Fenton, standouts Haley Lawless and Lauren Beltach and the rest of the Sentinels a test. It didn't happen, at least not so that Seton was pushed to more than three games.

Lawless and Betlach celebrated their final home regular-season game by combining for 40 kills as Seton knocked off Queen Creek, 25-18, 25-20, 25-17.

"Our deal is we usually have the two best players on the court in a match, so we set to them a lot," Felton said. "Queen Creek is the best team we've played this season outside of the tournaments we've been in. It wasn't our best match, but there were distractions with Senior Night. They were three tight games."

Lawless, the last senior introduced in Senior Night ceremonies and the last player named as Seton's starters were announced also left her stamp on the the final point of Game 3 with her 23rd kill. Lawless one of the architects' of the three state titles, is headed for UCLA next year. She and Betlach (scholarship to North Carolina Greensboro)  combined for 16 kills in the first game. And that was with Lawless a little off.

"She had some hitting errors early, but after that she was very good," Felton said. "We did a good job serving. The referees were giving a quick whistle and we wanted to serve right away. It was a fast pace."

Queen Creek, 13-3  and No. 8 in D-II power-point rankings, grabbed early leads fo three and four points in the first two games. In game 1 with the match tied at 6, Seton (16-0 ppg)) ran off 10 of the next 14 points with Lawless and Betlach almost alternating on successful attacks.

After closing out Game 1, Queen Creek jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the second. The Sentinels didn't catch up until they evened the things at 11. From there Betlach went on a tear serving, serving six straight points, including three aces. Betlach (six aces for the night) wasn't as effective hitting in Game 2, but middle Mikala Morris picked up the slack with four kills, most of them of the finesse variety.

Game 3 was close most of the way, but with an 18-16 lead Seton capitalized mostly on unforced errors by Queen Creek the rest of the way tto pull off the sweep.

Queen Creek, which has several strong hitters, was led by Jasmine Hanna with 12 kills and Alyssa Gibson with eight.

Queen Creek finishes its regular season at home Thursday against Division I Desert Ridge. Seton has two road games next week with Tempe and Marcos de Niza. The Sentinels also are competing Friday and Saturday at the annual Nike Tournament of Champions Invitational in Tempe.