Gresham, Barlow and Central Catholic give the MHC three teams in this years 6A tournament.

Gresham’s volleyball team pounded out a 25-12, 25-20, 25-17 win over Lakeridge in the second round of the 6A state playoffs Saturday.

The Gophers faced their only real challenge in the second set, erasing an early 4-2 deficit behind a four-point serving spurt by Abby Bryant.

Gresham moved to the brink of closing out the set on a pair of kills by Haley Crouser only to see Lakeridge fight off six set points.

After seeing her team return a ball under the net, Gresham coach Lori Cook called a timeout.

The team returned to the court and cleaned up matters in a hurry with Crouser taking a big swing that sent the ball off the arms of the Pacers’ libero and into the ceiling. The ball came back down quickly, falling to the court between three Lakeridge players.

All eight second-round matches ended in sweeps.

Central Catholic beat West Linn and Barlow beat Lake Oswego, putting three MHC teams into the 6A tournament next weekend at Liberty High.

The three league teams are in the top half of the bracket, and all will be in action at 1:15 p.m. Friday with Central Catholic facing Gresham in one quarterfinal match, while Barlow faces Roseburg on the adjoining court.

“It’s a different atmosphere once you get to that final site — there’s definitely a build-up to it,” Cook said. “But if we come out and play like we did tonight, we’ll be good.”

Look for extended coverage of Saturday’s playoff win in the Tuesday, Nov. 6, print edition.

View a photo gallery of the match at …

http://daveball.exposuremanager.com/g/nov3_lakeridge-gresham_vball