9th Graders Have Turn-Around Week
9th Graders go 3W-1L this week to go to 7W-6L as the team struggled with their serving early but seemed to turn it around in the last 2 matches of the week to finish with a dominant 2-0 win versus the Barons of Woodbridge. The young Hilltoppers will test themselves this week with matchups versus Elizabeth (1-2 loss in first matchup), Chatham (won 2-0 last year) and Cranford (lost 1-2 in a scrimmage) for PINK OUT !!!
JV Improve But Victories Are Elusive
JV went 1W-3L but was more competitive versus some of their opposition this time around the conference schedule which was clearly evident in the tight matches versus the Highlanders of GL (leading late in set 2), the Dragons of Kent Place (led in both sets late), the split earned with Scotch-Plains Fanwood and the 3 set battle versus the Barons of Woodbridge.
This week will be a challenge for the Top as the Summit JV take on Elizabeth who were victorious 2-0 over the Top in their first meeting. Chatham took SHS in 2 last year as well in their last meeting and Cranford was also victorious over the Top 2-1 in a scrimmage in August.
Varsity Fight For Win versus SPF But Consistent Wins Evade the Top
Varsity will try to get a pivotal victory over the Minutewomen as they look to gain momentum for states in their 2nd match this season. With a win, the Top will guarantee themselves another season in the Watchung next year as well. The first outing saw Elizabeth win 2-1 with a scoring advantage of 37-28 largely on the back of a 15-7 ace tally in favor of the visitors. Summit was close on kill numbers, losing that battle by a 22-18 tally but Elizabeth committed only 3 hitting errors the entire match while SHS tallied 15.
Chatham matchups have been classics these last few seasons. In 2023 Summit won 25-18, 25-23 at home. In 2024, SHS won a classic battle on the road 25-23, 25-23. What will 2025 bring? Undoubtedly another classic state tournament like match.
Lastly, the Cranford Cougars visit the Top on Thursday for the team's Dig Pink Night! Cranford took two of three sets in this year's scrimmage by 25-21, 14-25 and 28-30 scores in a preview of the match to come. Cranford has all but locked up the Mountain Division Title and will be moving up to the Watchung Division in 2026 but for this year, the Cougars are looking to send a message to the County as they did when they traveled to UC and stunned the Vikings on the road.
This week the Hilltoppers dropped a 2-0 decision to GL but showed still an error rate on offense and serving that was too high as the 25-13, 25-17 scores would indicate even though the SHS squad was only out-killed by a 14-11 margin for the match.
Kent Place dropped the Top 2-0 for the 2nd time this week by 25-23 and 25-16 scores. SHS came back from 20-17 down to take a 22-20 lead in set 1 and 23-22 but failed to close out the Dragons. Set 2 saw the Top trail 14-12 but later tied 15-15 but they were out-scored 11-1 from that point on to drop that 2nd set.
SPF was a pivotal match for the Top as a loss would all but guarantee a drop in Division by Summit but a win could put the SHS side in a position to stay up. The match was a classic with SHS taking set 1 25-18, dropping set 2 25-18 but saw Summit trail 23-9 and go on an 9-0 run to make it interesting at the end with a 23-18 score that forced a Raider TO before SPF closed it out.
Set 3 came down to the very last 10 points as it has been the case most of the season. SHS trailed 20-17 but a hitting error by the visitors led to an ace by Natalie who followed up with another tough serve which gave the SHS D a chance to get the ball to Claire who put it down for a kill to knot the score up at 20. Another 2 Claire kills and a setting error by the visitors had Summit up 23-20 forcing a SPF TO. The Raiders got a big kill out of the TO and then saw the Top tally 2 hitting errors to see the scoreboard go to 23-23. SHS got a pivotal perfect pass by Maren and they eventually got a tip kill by Claire to give Summit a match point at 24-23. On the match point play, SHS saw Claire swing away, Nadia tip and Catherine block an attack but no point was earned. SHS won on a 2nd ball return error by the SPF L who was trying to get the ball to the Raider's best OH but failed to do so to give SHS a 25-23 win!
Less than 15 hours later the squad took on the Barons of Woodbridge in a best 3 of 5 match but the Squad was just off from the level of performance they showed against SPF as they dropped a 25-17, 25-20, 25-21 decision to the visitors. Summit gave up 22 aces in the match which proved to be the deciding factor in a match that had the Top notch 23 kills despite only passing at a 1.23 rating.
Summit's offense seems to be on the right track and just needs to produce less errors and the serving woes seem to be in the rearview mirror with the serve receive looking solid on most matchups now.
Here were the MATCH LEADERS for this past week:
MATCH LEADERS
ACES: Sophie 6, Rylen / Lynn 4
SERVE RATING (4=ace, 0=err) : Sophie 2.24, Nadia 2.06, Rylen 2.00
RECEIVE PERFECT PASS (3): Maren 18, Mackenna 17, Rylen 5
PERFECT PASS %: Mackenna 37.8 Maren 27.3, Rylen 15.6
RECEIVE RATING (3=perfect, 0=gave up ace): Mackenna 1.96 Maren 1.58, Sophie 1.29
KILLS: Claire 25, Mackenna 23, Molly 12
HIT EFF. (k-e/total att) : Molly .182, Claire .179, Lily .118
KILL %: Claire 37.3, Molly 36.4, Lily 29.4
DIGS: Mackenna 24, Maren 23, Sophie 18
BLOCKS: Catherine 4, Molly / Nadia / Claire 2
ASSISTS: Nadia 68
BEST POINT SCORERS: Claire 27, Mackenna 26, Molly 14
BEST NET POINT SCORERS (0 or higher w/at least 1 earned pt.): Claire 9, Molly 6, Catherine 1
No comments:
Post a Comment