BY SHANE HENIGAN
Times-Shamrock Staff Writer

In last season’s first meeting, Western Wayne rallied from a two-set deficit to defeat Mountain View in a Lackawanna League boys volleyball match.

Lucas LaRue made sure that wouldn’t be the case this year.

A returning All-Region player, LaRue had 10 kills and eight blocks to lead the Eagles to a 3-0 (25-21, 25-22, 25-17) victory over Western Wayne Thursday in an early season showdown of two of the top teams in the league.

“This is really huge,” LaRue said. “Getting this amount of energy early in the season, as opposed to a slow start with a new team, it’s just a great feeling to have all this chemistry already so early in the season.”

The two teams were tied in the first game, 7-7, before Mountain View went on a mad a run. LaRue started it with a kill, Dustin Denby followed with two of his own and Keegan Mack and Trystan Phillips each had one to put the Eagles ahead, 12-7.

Western Wayne would later cut the deficit to 15-13 on Tyler Atcavage’s kill. It was the closest the Wildcats would get for the rest of the game.

LaRue got the lead back to 18-13 with two consecutive aces and then finished off the game with another kill.

The Eagles kept that momentum going in the second game, scoring the first nine points and then extending the lead to 15-4 before the Wildcats called a timeout.

Western Wayne regrouped and after being down 20-8, went on a 14-4 surge to cut the deficit to 24-22, forcing the Eagles to call a timeout. The Wildcats couldn’t complete the comeback, as a serving fault out of the timeout ended the game and put the Eagles ahead, 2-0.

“I was telling the guys the whole time that (Western Wayne) was going to make a run,” Mountain View coach Dave Breese said. “It was nice for us to make that early run and get out to a good lead before they did.”

The Eagles took control early in the third game. After a fault cut their lead to 11-9, Mountain View went on a 12-6 run to establish a comfortable lead.

LaRue had four kills during the run before finishing the match off in style with a vicious spike to give Mountain View the clean sweep.

“We feel like we’re very confident,” LaRue said. “This win is a great boost to our morale. We’re playing loose. But we can all get better.
“We just have to keep working.”

The Eagles also picked up a 3-0 win in the season opener at Blue Ridge on Tuesday.

LaRue had 12 kills and eight blocks to lead Mountain View.

Sean Woodruff had 19 assists and Kyle Rivenburgh had nine digs for the Raiders.

Ty Herbert had seven kills for Blue Ridge, Austin Darrow had six kills and Dom Rogers had 12 digs.

Elk Lake split the week, picking up a win over Lackawanna Trail in the opening game, and falling to Abington Heights.

Kenny Brittingham had 10 points and five aces and Adam Curry had eight points to lead the Warriors over Trail.
J.J. Heft added seven points for the winners.

Adam Curry paced Elk Lake with seven service points in the loss to Abington Heights.

Forest City also picked up one win last week. The Foresters notched a 3-2 victory over Lackawanna Trail on Thursday.

At Lackawanna Trail, Noah Fedak had 10 points and 10 assists and Matt Nevins had seven blocks and nine kills to lead Forest City.

Noah Yates had 13 points for the Foresters.

In the season opener, Forest City fell to Western Waynw, 3-0, in the Lackawanna Leqgue match.

Tyler Butler had eight digs for Forest City and Noah Fedak had five assists.