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Streaks Go The Distance

Chris Hoffman/Highlands Today

The Sebring Blue Streaks celebrate after a hard fought, five-game win over the Lake Placid Green Dragons on Tuesday.

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By CHRIS HOFFMAN

Highlands Today

Published: September 25, 2008

LAKE PLACID - Sierra Weaver was hardly at a loss for words as she summed up what the games against Sebring every year mean to her and the rest of her Lake Placid teammates.

"We'd trade all our district titles to beat Sebring every year," Weaver said. "These are the biggest games of the year for us and we circle them on our calendar.

"Sebring is our biggest rival and I'd rather beat them than be crowned a district champion."

The Streaks and Green Dragons didn't disappoint the near-capacity crowd, as they took each other's best shots and still it took the full five games for a winner to be decided, as Sebring defeated Lake Placid 12-25, 25-19, 25-22, 21-25, 15-6 in an epic battle between the rival schools on Tuesday.

Weaver, who was holding back her emotions after the game, described the euphoria that the Green Dragon team had created at school on game day.

"The whole team was ready to play the game this morning," she said. "We were fired up all day as we wore our warm-ups at school with face paint and colored our hair green and really got the students behind us.

"But the feeling I have right now is total sadness. We knew we had our chance to put them away and we let it get away. This loss really breaks my heart."

Sebring's Anna West said that she was running on "pure adrenaline" during the final game, as she managed a smile through the visible exhaustion from a grueling five-day stretch where the Streaks played six matches.

"I gained a lot of respect for Lake Placid tonight," West said. "They never gave up until the final point, but we came out and showed that we wanted it more."

The adrenaline was pulsating in the gym as the teams came out for the fifth game.

Weaver again put her team on her shoulders and made another key block and a power kill to put her team up 4-3, but a kill by Brit Augustine and a shot into the net by Lake Placid turned the match upside down.

Sebring showed they were the toast of the county on this night, as the Streaks used their balanced attack during a game-ending 12-2 run to put away the gutsy Green Dragons and validate the high standards Sinness has imposed on her team this season.

"This win makes it all worth it," Sinness said.

Sebring's Megan Darr, who was the Streaks' cheerleader on and off the court, jumped out of her seat on the bench after the final point was won and celebrated with her teammates.

"This match was crazy," Darr said. "I was just trying to help do my part in bringing our spirits back up a bit."

When asked about the state of the team during the huddle before the fifth game: "We weren't thinking about what had just happened at all," Darr said. "We knew we just had to start fresh with every game."

The Streaks, who were swept by Okeechobee on Monday, were not ready for the Green Dragon onslaught, which came out like gangbusters to trounce their rivals 25-12 in the opening game, much to the delight of the assembled LP fans.

But all the hours during the summer of early morning workouts and running countless miles around the track was for games like these, according to Sinness.

"This is the type of game that tests your mental toughness," Sinness said. "Last year, I don't think we could have shaken off a bad first game like we had tonight, but the girls showed that they can move on and push through adversity."

Sebring senior Molly Blackman was one of the catalysts of the resurgence in the second game, as she patrolled the net with authority and blasted shot after shot at Lake Placid to keep her team in the game.

The Green Dragons never wavered, as co-captain Kaneisha Hamilton and Tiffany Bisbey kept pace with Sebring point for point, combining for five kills during the early going that saw the score knotted at 14.

That was where they road diverged for both teams, as the Streaks ran off seven consecutive points en route to a six point win.

"That first game was left over from our match from Okeechobee," West said. "Coach Sinness told us that the match begins now for us. We knew we didn't want to go down two games to this Lake Placid team."

Long rallies and offensive outbursts littered the third game, which saw six lead changes and both teams hitting numerous shots into the net.

With Lake Placid up 12-10, Sebring scored seven unanswered points during a 9-2 run that saw them take a five-point lead, but the Green Dragons rebounded by scoring five points of their own to tie the score at 19.

But Sebring held off the host team and put them on the brink of elimination.

"I've never seen this team that focused as they were coming out for the fourth game," Lake Placid head coach Marilyn Jones said. "They really wanted this match and knew they had to push it to five games, and then anything can happen."

Lake Placid jumped out to a 12-7 lead on the strong play by Weaver, who scored the first two points of the game and made an impressive block on Sebring's Molly Blackman at the net, and pushed the match to a fifth-game tiebreaker.

Sebring takes on another cross-country foe, as they host Avon Park tonight, while Lake Placid opens up their district schedule when they host Frostproof.

Chris Hoffman can be reached at 863-386-5827 or at choffman@highlandstoday.com.

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