Yale volleyball pulls off miraculous comeback, stuns Cros-Lex in district quarterfinal

CROSWELL — With her team one point away from elimination, Yale volleyball coach Kerry Dykstra called a timeout.

The situation was bleak, as the Bulldogs trailed 14-6 in the final set. All Dykstra could do was remind them of what she'd preached all night — they had nothing to lose.

And that's when everything changed.

Yale stunningly rallied with 10 straight points to shock Croswell-Lexington, 3-2, in five sets (22-25, 25-17, 25-23, 19-25, 16-14) of a Division 2 district quarterfinal on the road Monday. Yale had less than a 1% odds of winning at 14-6 but pulled off a comeback for the ages.

The Bulldogs improved to 34-12-1 and advanced to Wednesday's district semifinal against North Branch.

"We just started working more as a team than we were before," Yale senior Alyvia Vincent said. "We were all kind of down, because we had lost the (fourth) set before that. So, we just started working more as a team, communicating and just pulled it off. We're like that."

As for Cros-Lex, it finished the season at 45-9.

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"Yale plays really tough all the time," Cros-Lex coach Ryan Wilson said. "They never quit and it's evident in the way that (game) played out. They just were two points better in the end, that's what it really comes down to.

"We had a lot of girls that did some nice things. We had some moments of awesomeness and moment where we weren't at our best. It just wasn't enough tonight."

Monday was Yale's first postseason win since Oct. 30, 2017.

"As coaches, we've been preaching to this team that they're better than they think they are," Dykstra said. "We're in a really tough league ... you can say a lot as a coach, but I think these ladies nailed it. They believed in themselves and believed in the team. They knew that everyone was all in, and that they were going to play for each other."

Contact Brenden Welper at bwelper@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrendenWelper.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Yale volleyball pulls off miraculous comeback, stuns Cros-Lex