The Varsity Volleyball Team will look back at the 2019 campaign as an up and down season with some outstanding sets, some not so good sets, and overall, a season filled with a much more competitive and efficient set of performances. New Providence and Roselle Park would be the last 2 matches that would count toward state playoff qualification and the team was walking into the week with a 9W-11L mark.
The Squad looked to re-create its huge upset of New Providence last year on the road after getting close to that at home last week. This time, at stake, would be passage to the Quarter-Finals of the Union County Tournament. SHS looked to take the lessons learned from its tough 2-1 loss to the Pioneers at home and come out with a different result on the road. Things started off well for the Top after a Pioneer ace had given the Green and White a 3-2 lead as Maldonado nailed a kill to tie the score at 3 and another 2 kills by the OH followed by a hitting error by New Prov gave SHS a 6-3 lead and a 4-0 run that had the Pioneers clearly rattled. New Providence battled back to within 1 but a Clapp kill and another Pioneer free ball error had the lead back up to 3 at 8-5. The teams swapped possessions until a huge block by Guenther on a tip attempt followed by 2 timely kills by Vostal had SHS dreaming big holding an 11-6 lead. Despite a Pioneer service break, Summit was able to side-out via Vostal again and Lopez nailed an ace to again expand the lead to 13-8.
But then New Prov began to chip away at the lead as their serving attack began to provide the squad with opportunities to attack at will and preventing SHS from doing the same. The Pioneers had cut the lead down to 1 at 13-12 before a dump kill by Yorio stifled the run. Goudreau stuff blocked the Pioneer middle in the next play and the momentum seemed to have swung again with Summit leading 15-12. But a 3-0 Pioneer run (2 kills, 1 ace) had the teams knotted up at 15. Both squads were unable to muster much over the next 2 rotations and, tied at 17, Stocks delivered 2 serves that forced New Prov into 2 errors that gave the Hilltoppers a 19-17 lead and forced a time-out from the Green and White. Despite the Pioneers coming off the time out and forcing another tie at 19 all, Maldonado again provided an answer for the Top that had SHS up late 20-19. New Providence responded with a kill of their own and forced a tip error that had the Pioneers with their first lead at 21-20. Vostal came up with a huge momentum swinging block to knot up the score at 21 but the Hilltoppers committed a free ball return error to give the Pioneers the serve which they took full advantage of by nailing 2 aces and taking what seemed to be a cruching 24-21 lead.
SHS has been at fault for many things in its losses but giving up on plays has not been one of them and in that vein, Guenther provided a spark with a block that had SHS still down 22-24 but with life. A Guenther serve caused all kinds of problems for the Pioneer serve receive and led to a ball handling error call that had SHS within 1 at 24-23. Another deep serve by Guenther led to a free ball return that Summit had a shot at putting down but it was not to be and SHS fell 25-23 in set 1.
Summit matched the Pioneer offense as the Hilltoppers hit for 9 kills to New Prov´s 10 and out-blocked the Pioneers 4-1. However, the Green and White out-aced Summit 5-1 which yielded a 16-14 scoring advantage for the Pioneers, the eventual difference in the set. Summit served at a 95.7% but only got 1 ace, a trade-off the team was willing to make so long as their serve receive could keep New Prov at bay. At the end of set 1 that became obviously a difficult task. Vostal (3 kills) and Maldonado (4 kills) were instrumental in keeping Summit in control most of the set and gave a chance for the Hilltoppers to pull off the upset in set 1 but the team came up just a few points short. New Prov kept their attacks away from the Summit Libero, Stocks, who came up with only 2 digs in the set but her teammates picked up the slack, tallying 17 digs for the set.
The Summit serve receive buckled in set 2 and unfortunately did not straighten itself out in time to give SHS a shot to come back in the set and match. New Prov raced out to a 3-0 lead behind some tough serves but a serving error gave the Hilltoppers the ball back. Guidetti answered the opportunity with an ace but the New Prov squad would not allow the Maroon and White to gather any momentum, breaking serve and extending the lead back to 3 at 5-2. Guidetti and Maldonado nailed 2 kills to get SHS back to contention at 5-4. A Clapp kill and a Pioneer hitting error had SHS square at 6.
But that was about the end of all good things in the set and match as New Providence ran off a 6-0 run (2 aces) that effectively took the heart out of the Hilltopper squad. Only a New Prov serving error stopped the run but a kill by the Pioneer OH resumed the onslaught as the Green and White ran off another 8-3 run to get the lead to 20-10. Summit kept fighting and got another kill by Maldonado and a tip kill by Vostal to cut the lead to 8 at 22-14 but 2 points later, Summit was looking at the wrong end of a 24-14 score. Maldonado notched another kill and her subsequent attack led to a Pioneer error which gave the Hilltoppers 16 points. However, that was the end of the scoring as the Pioneers finally converted on match point to end the Hilltopper run in the County Tournament with a 25-16 set 2 and match win.
The difference in the set was the Pioneer serving as it struck for 7 aces and kept the SHS offense from ever getting into rhythm. Maldonado had 3 of the 6 Summit kills in the set with no errors for a 60% kill % and .600 efficiency but the lack of passing accuracy limited the team´s offensive opportunities overall.
Summit went 37/40 from the service line and notched only 2 aces. Maldonado was a one woman wrecking crew, hitting for 7 of the team´s 15 kills as she went 7/12 on attack attempts with 0 errors for a .583 efficiency and 58.3 kill %.. Vostal was especially effective with 4 kills out of 7 swings for a .429 efficiency. but there were not enough looks to compensate for the serving production of the Pioneers.
HILLTOPPERS REBOUND FROM PIONEER LOSS WITH WIN OVER PANTHERS
The Hilltoppers outscored the Panthers of Roselle Park 28-14 for the match, had 19 kills to RP´s 10 and out-aced their opposition by a 7-4 margin in a 25-20, 25-23 win.
SHS took an early 3-0 lead but from that point on through 7 rotations, nothing much changed and when Walsh served again in rotation 7, the score was still only 12-9. Roselle Park broke serve and went on a 2-0 run to knot up the score at 12 but the Hilltoppers responded with a 4-0 run (Goudreau kill and Guidetti ace) to force a time-out at 16-12.
The run continued after the time-out as Guidetti hit for another ace and Maldonado pushed a tip into an empty area to give SHS an insurmountable 18-12 lead. The Panthers got as close as 22-19 but a Yorio kill followed by a Clapp kill all but sealed the deal in set 1 and, a few points later, SHS had wrapped it up at 25-20.
In set 2, Summit jumped out to a 5-1 lead and built tha lead up to 12-6 by rotation 6 forcing a time-out by their opponents. Although the squad lost the next point, Summit went on a 5-0 run to get a stranglehold on the set by a 16-7 lead that they would not relinquish. The Panthers got as close as 18-14 but a Maldonado dump kill gave SHS their 5 point lead back at 19-14.
Unexplicably though, Summit tried to force 5 consecutive plays and yielded 5 unforced errors to see Roselle Park cut the lead down to 1 at 19-18 but a 3-1 run gave the Hilltoppers the comfort they seemingly needed at 22-19 to close out the set. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell Roselle Park the set was over and the Panthers roared back with a 3-0 run to tie the score at 22. A block by Yorio gave SHS a 23-22 lead but another Summit fault tied up the score again but RP followed that up with a hitting error of their own to give Summit and Walsh an opportunity to close out the set and match.
Despite a time-out by Roselle Park, Walsh got the serve in play and after 2 attack attempts failed to end the set, it was a Goudreau swing that put the nail in the coffin and finished off the Panthers for the Hilltoppers´ 10th win of the season.
Guidetti hit for 3 of the team´s 7 aces, the squad gave up only 4 aces in the 2 sets and Yorio (5 kills), Maldonado (4 kills) and Goudreau (4 kills) headed a multi-faceted offense that kept the Panthers at bay. Stocks led all players with 19 digs to anchor a solid defense.
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