After watching the Lawrence High girls volleyball team celebrate Thursday night following a sweep of its home triangular, one would have thought the Lions just won the state title.

Lawrence High's volleyball team cheers before the start of its match against Shawnee Mission South. The Lions swept a home triangular Thursday at LHS.

Instead of eating chocolate cupcakes given to them for a post-game snack, the girls smothered them into each other’s faces in celebration.

“They needed this win,” said LHS coach Molly LaMere, whose team improved to 8-17. “It was about time. We have been on a little

losing streak right now, but they worked hard all week long and improved a lot of the little things that needed to be improved.

“They are really excited because we executed all of the things that we worked on.”

In their opening match, the Lions defeated Shawnee Mission South, 25-19, 25-17. In game one, the Lions committed two straight errors to fall behind 18-16. LaMere called timeout, and Lawrence went on a 5-0 run to take a 21-18 lead.

“The one thing that holds this team back is that all of the girls are really nice and nobody is really competitive or wanting to get in each other’s faces,” LaMere said. “All week we worked on being more intense and demanding more out of each other and during the timeout I reminded the girls of that and they were able to pull it out.”

• 6Sports video: Lawrence High volleyball sweeps (10-06-05)

Lawrence finished the game with another 5-0 run to win it thanks to junior Sydnei Tolefree. On consecutive possessions, Tolefree recorded a kill, a block and a tip for the final three points of the game. She finished with seven kills and two aces against Shawnee Mission South.

“I was just having fun,” Tolefree said. “That’s what we need to do. When we have fun, good things happen.”

Lawrence's Kayla Nolte (8) sets for Lindsey Lawrence (6) in the Lions' home quad.

In their second match of the evening, the Lions played Olathe East and again swept to victory in two games, winning 25-2, 25-15.

In game one, the teams were tied at 14 before back-to-back aces by Tolefree gave LHS a 16-14 lead. The teams traded points before senior Kirsten Stack took over. After spending much of the match on the bench, Stack came in and recorded two kills in the final five points for the Lions, helping them pull away with the victory.

“We have asked her to come off the bench and produce when she’s not warm, and she’s done so well for us,” LaMere said. “She is really competitive and has that senior leadership that we need.”

Senior Kayla Nolte had 22 assists on the day in what was an all-around team effort for LHS. Senior Lindsey Lawrence recorded six kills against Olathe East and junior Amanda Weishaar had 11 kills on the day, including six against East.

Even with the dominating performance Thursday, Tolefree and the Lions still have some work to do.

“There are a lot of things that we need to improve on,” Tolefree said. “Most importantly, I think, is our aggressiveness at the net.”

Lawrence will be back in action Tuesday night when it hosts a quad.