LELAND -- A point and a call away from going up two games to none, Leland got neither one.
Traverse City Christian rallied to beat the host Comets 21-25, 28-26, 25-18, 25-22 and claim its second straight Class D district volleyball title.
The Sabres (38-13-6) advance to face Mason County Eastern in Tuesday's regional at Frankfort.
"They wanted it really bad," TC Christian senior setter Kara Romstadt said. "They wanted to take (the title) back and we wouldn't let them."
Leland (21-27-3) very nearly took a 2-0 lead against TC Christian. But with a 26-25 lead, the Comets waited for a whistle against Christian for a carry.
The call never came and the Sabres got the ball back across the net later and scored a point to knot the score.
"It happens and it's tough," Leland coach Beth Osorio said. "Sometimes the call happens at a crucial moment and changes the momentum, sometimes it doesn't matter. You just don't know.
"It's part of the game and you have to recover from that."
Instead, it was TC Christian that recovered at the end of game two. Freshman Callie Kostrzewa made a running one-handed save that found its way to the floor on the Leland side of the net to make the score 27-26 and a bad pass gave the Sabres the equalizing game two.
"The young freshman had two big points at the end of that second game and I think turned the match," TC Christian coach Russ Hansen said. "It was amazing. I'm just thankful she was quick enough to get there."
"My sister made a great play at the end of the first game," junior middle hitter Lindsay Kostrzewa added. "It really helped us pick up our defense after that. It was all downhill after that."
While little sister helped get the match even at a game apiece, the older sister brought it home. Lindsay Kostrzewa used her height advantage to hit over the smaller Leland blockers.
"They have a 6-foot-2 middle that's incredible," said Osorio, whose tallest player is 5-9 and countered with middle blockers that are 5-8 and 5-6. "We did our best to stop her."
Even after the disappointment with the way game two ended, Leland jumped out to a 5-0 lead in game three. Junior outside hitter Sarah Ruszel capped the run with a kill.
The Sabres quickly erased that deficit with seven straight points, two on kills by Lindsay Kostrzewa and two on Romstadt aces.
Later in the game TC Christian reeled off runs of five and four straight to go up 17-9. The last spurt was capped by a Kara Finney kill while the five-point outburst featured three kills by Lindsay Kostrzewa and a pair of Meghan Terpstra aces.
As the other three games were, game four was a back-and-forth battle for much of the way. Leland led the final game 20-17 before three more kills by Lindsay Kostrzewa and a couple of well-placed hits by Arielle Kanitz turned the momentum one final time. A hit by Bethanie Hansen finally ended the game and sent the Sabres streaming off the bench.
Russ Hansen said the district triumph meant a little bit more because of where it was played.
"It's hard to come up to Leland and win because they have so much tradition," he said. "So you're fighting the crowd, the tradition and the other team."
"We lost to them a couple of times this year so to come in and win it was so incredible," Lindsay Kostrzewa added. "We knew we had it in us all along."
Lindsay Kostrzewa finished with 25 kills in the match to go along with 16 digs and a perfect 18-for-18 serving night. Romstadt added 36 assists and was 20-for-20 serving for a Sabres' team that missed just two serves all night.
Joni Yahr was 17-for-18 serving with 10 kills while Finney was 16-for-17 with 16 digs. Terpstra was 18-for-18 serving with 22 digs while Callie Kostrzewa was 10-for-10 and added six kills.
Ruszel led Leland with 15 kills, five digs, three aces and one block while Rhiannon Hildenbrandt had 13 kills, three assists and eight digs. Setter Molly Harrison had 35 assists to go along with four kills, 10 digs and three aces.
Other key contributors for the Comets were Haley VerSnyder (30 digs, two assists), Melissa Loredo (15 digs), Annalise Povolo (six kills) and Claudia Toro (eight digs, four aces).
Print this story
E-mail this story
