BY WENDI REARDON PRICE
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Lady Spikers showed off what they had been working on during their 12-day break with a big 3-0 win over Mercy High School last Thursday.
“It’s a huge win for us at the end of the season,” said Kelly Pinner, head coach for Clarkston Varsity Volleyball. “We

have a couple of events this week, but moving into playoffs knowing we have Lake Orion the first round it definitely gave us a lot of confidence moving forward. It’s kind of what we worked on the 12 days we had off was how can we find a way to beat Mercy, who was No. 4 in the state when we played them. Beating them definitely proves to the girls they can play and beat anybody in the state when we are playing well.”
The Lady Wolves (26-12) opened the scoring against Mercy quickly in the first game.
Mercy stayed within a few points and tied the score a few times before Clarkston would pull ahead with key hits from senior Abbey Malinowski.
The Lady Wolves closed the first game off a unreturned serve made by senior Jen Chupinsky, with a 25-22 win.
Clarkston won the second game 25-20. They went on to win the third game 26-24 after coming back from a 8-point deficit.
“It was good,” Pinner said. “It has been one of our struggles all year being able to put teams away. We are showing improvement.”
Malinowski had 12 digs and 27 kills, which Pinner added is phenomenal amount of kills in three games.
Chupinsky had 14 digs and senior Kayla Luchenbach had five kills and two blocks.
The Lady Wolves opened the week on Monday at Rochester Adams’ quad going against the Lady Highlanders, Avondale and Royal Oak.
“This will be a good quad to give some kids quality time playing who haven’t played this year,”Pinner said. “It’s nice to get in those kids who have worked hard for us all year. Hopefully we have some fun, too.”
The Lady Wolves host a quad on Thursday beginning at 5 p.m. with Macomb Dakota, Birmingham Seaholm and Marian.
“Those are three good teams,” Pinner added. “It will be a good quad moving into playoffs.”
They head to the Seaholm tournament on Saturday to wrap the regular season.
Clarkston hosts MHSAA Volleyball Districts next week with Brandon and Oxford playing on Monday at 5:30 p.m. The Lady Wolves play Lake Orion in the semifinals on Nov. 1 at 5:30 p.m. Holly plays in the second semifinal game against the Brandon/Oxford winner at 7 p.m.

  Clarkston Varsity Volleyball