Wheeler takes 2A sectional

Updated: October 22, 2011 10:52PM

LAKE STATION — Officially, Wheeler won the Class 2A sectional 33 girl’s volleyball championship at around, 5:24 PM yesterday. But according to one of the stars in yesterday’s title win over Whiting, extra incentive from the night before helped out.

“Really, our team took what the football team did yesterday,” said junior Shannon Doyle about the Bearcats upset win over second ranked Andrean in their high school football sectional opener. “How they felt, and really, how I felt after that was incredible. We said we wanted to have that same feeling. It’s been awesome.”

The same can be said about the 22 kill performance by Doyle yesterday in a 25-18, 27-25, 25-16 win over a Whiting team that had beaten Wheeler twice during the regular season. It’s the fourth straight sectional title for Wheeler(26-10) who will host the regionals Tuesday. It’s also their 13th regional in school history and was witnessed by a few members of the football team, some who stood on the sidelines and served as a very loud cheering squad.

“It was awesome,” said Doyle when asked about the football team’s vocal presence at the game. “We knew Whiting was a good team and we knew we had to have a lot of energy. We knew we could not underestimate them what so ever.”

Net play was a major reason why the Bearcats will move on with Doyle being the catalyst. Several times in the game it was a Doyle spike that ended a Whiting run. And just like a good pitcher, just when you expected to see the Doyle fastball, when the situation called for it, she would take a little something off and still dink the ball in an open area.

“She stepped up for us big time today,” said Wheeler coach Alisha Polite. “She knew what her roll was and she did it.”

The best case in point of Doyle’s doing her job well was in the all important second set when Whiting made a run to cut a 21-17 the Bearcat lead to 21-20. That’s when the junior registered three kills down the stretch to open up the

Bearcat lead to 24-21.

The feisty Oilers would bounce back to tie the game at 25 each, but two straight botched serves would be their undoing. They would lose the second set, then give up the first five points of the final period and would never recover.

“I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t come out and play today,” said Whiting coach Kelly Greer. “We should have given them a better game.

My girls were flat today and unfortunately, it’s the wrong day to be flat.”

For Wheeler, Steph Beck had a team high 20 assists while Haley Plothow had 18 digs while Whitney Maas added 17. Natalie Roe had 18 assists and three service aces. For Whiting(26-10), who came up short in winning their second ever sectional, Kaylyn Anderson had 10 kills and Jasmine Lopez added 14 assists.

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