LADY HILLTOPPER VBALL BLOG : REGULAR SEASON COMES TO A CLOSE

Saturday, November 1, 2025

REGULAR SEASON COMES TO A CLOSE - STATE RUN ON THE HORIZON

9th GRADERS

The 9th Grade Lady Hilltoppers ended their season on a high with a 2-0 win over Linden! The young GOATS finished the season 11W-8L going 7W-1L over the last 3 weeks of the season! Congrats to Coach Seifert and the 9th graders for their outstanding season and growth!

JUNIOR VARSITY

Although the JV Squad lost in the first round of counties to the Union Farmers, the team did take the Farmers to 3 sets and then closed out the season with another 2-1 win over Linden and a 2-0 win on the road versus the Bulldogs of Dayton to finish the season 10W-14L! The Squad finished the last month of the season with a 5W-1L record to close the season out on a high note! Congrats to Coach Ross and the girls for fighting through a very tough season and never giving up on growing as a team to finish the season with a couple of upset wins and a great closing to the Fall.

VARSITY

The squad dropped a 2-0 decision to the Rahway Indians at home in the first Round of the County Tourney in a match that saw the Top get outscored 28-25 in a match that went 23-25 and 17-25 in favor of the visitors. SHS unfortunately won the error battle as the Hilltoppers committed 20 hitting, free ball and serving errors while Rahway netted only 12.

Linden on Senior Night was a turning point as the squad outscored the Tigers 32-10 in a 25-14, 25-16 victory and committed only 9 errors the entire 2 sets.

Dayton was a 2-1 battle that the Hilltoppers won 25-22, 20-25 and 25-18 in an important tuneup to states. The Top outscored the Bulldogs 44-33 in a match that saw SHS out-kill Dayton 29-21 and out-ace the home side 14-10 which proved to be the difference in the match. Less than 18 hours later, the final tuneup, a best out of 5 at Rahway awaited the Top.

Set 1 21-25

A rough start cost the Hilltoppers as the team was down 6-1 before the match was 5 minutes old... The team fought all the way back to within one at 21-22 but SHS had a dig error and gave up 2 aces to lose set 1.

Set 2 24-26

SHS looked like they were on the right track at 14-9 but a kill by Rahway preceeded 3 consecutive unforced hitting errors by Summit and soon the Indians saw themselves within striking distance at 17-16. But then the Hilltoppers went on a 4-0 run that had them up again by a seemingly comfortable 21-16 lead but a free ball receive error, a dig error, an attack error and a Rahway ace and kill had SHS tied at 21. Summit responded though to the adversity and held a 23-21 lead after a Sophie ace but another kill by Rahway followed by a Summit hitting error had the score at 23-23. Unfortunately a service error and a hitting error by the Top in the last crucial points was the difference in the set loss

Set 3 13-25

Another rough start all but decided the set and match. Down 8-2, SHS was able to claw back to within 2 at 6-8 but as had been the story all match key Summit errors at key points turned each set around. Summit gave up a 5-0 run to trail again 13-8 and never was able to cut the lead down less than 5 after that as an 8-0 run by RHS (3 aces and 2 kills on overpasses) sealed the fate of the Hilltoppers.

Despite the loss, the squad ended on a 2w-2l run and seem poised to make some noise in the tourney as
SHS tries to return to the semis of the state sectional tournament for consecutive years. Summit has made it to semis in 1998, in 2010 and 2011 and again in Spring 2021 and Fall 2021. Can the Hilltoppers do it again in the context of this challenging season?

The opportunity is there for a great ending to a very challenging season.

SEASON MILESTONE ALERTS:

Claire is 27 kills away from 150

Mackenna is 4 aces away from 50

Nadia is 7 assists away from 350 for the season

CAREER MILESTONE ALERTS:

Lynn is 8 aces away from 50

Maren is 14 digs away from 250

Mackenna is 10 aces away from 150 and 24 kills away from 300

Molly is 3 kills away from 150

Catherine is 2 kills away from 100

Here were the MATCH LEADERS for these last 4 matches:

MATCH LEADERS

ACES: Nadia 12, Mackenna 9, Sophie 8

SERVE RATING (4=ace, 0=err) : Lynn 2.33, Nadia 2.23, Mackenna 2.19

RECEIVE PERFECT PASS (3): Mackenna 19 Maren 11, Ayina 7

PERFECT PASS %: Mackenna 32.8 Maren 28.9, Ayina 28.0

RECEIVE RATING (3=perfect, 0=gave up ace): Mackenna 2.03, Ayina 1.84, Sophie 1.73

KILLS: Mackenna 32, Claire 14, Molly 13

HIT EFF. (k-e/total att) : Catherine .412, Claire .194

KILL %: Catherine 52.9, Molly 44.8, Claire 38.9

DIGS: Nadia 28, Sophie 24, Mackenna 20

BLOCKS: Molly 3, Natalie 1

ASSISTS: Nadia 82, Mackenna 10, Maren 3

BEST POINT SCORERS: Mackenna 41, Molly 16, Nadia and Claire 14

BEST NET POINT SCORERS (0 or higher w/at least 5 earned pts.): Catherine 6, Natalie 5, Claire 4

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FALL 2025 BRIEF PREVIEW

The squad will rely on the leadership and decision making of their Setter Mackenna to achieve post season success and earn victories over a tough Watchung Division schedule. Molly will be the stalwart in the MB position who will look to be a major force on offense and defense to help open up the offense. Catherine will join Molly as the other starter and this duo will look to improve on last year's offensive and defensive output out of the middle. Maren will lead a brand new set of DS passers who will need to be at least at if not better then 2024's serve receive team to help the squad maximize its offensive weapons Claire and Natalie will be the combination SHS will rely upon out of the OH slot to help carry the team offense and so far in this first week, it looks like the combo will have a lot of success. The duo will be joined by Rachel on the OPP who will look to fill a safety valve position and use her athleticism to be a blocking presence. Backing the pin positions will be frosh Maddie who was one of the hardest hitters on the team and proved herself to be in the upper echelon on the team of passing and receiving. Lily will be backing the MBs and she has shown already an ability to be a blocking presence and is starting to show that she can score at this level. Ayina, Rylen, Lynn and Sophie will round out the defensive squad around Maren as this trio has made already lots of defensive plays that have helped SHS score more frequently in transition. Nadia is the insurance policy as the junior Setter is learning to be the leader of the offense and has already gotten some work in matches running the offense. Nadia will look to contribute to the team's success and prepare herself for the 2025 season.

TEAM ACADEMIC AWARDS

THE 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021 WINTER, 2021 FALL, 2022, 2023 AND 2024 TEAMS EARNED THE AVCA TEAM ACADEMIC AWARD AND THE HONOR ROLL SCHOOL AWARD SINCE ITS INCEPTION A FEW YEARS AGO LESS THAN 50 NJ SCHOOLS GOT THE AWARD OVER THE LAST 7 YEARS.!!! LESS THAN 415 HIGH SCHOOLS NATIONALLY!!! ***Additionally, the top 20% of team GPAs from each division are designated as Team Academic Honor Roll schools, representing the highest scholarly achievement in our sport.*** SUMMIT HIGH SCHOOL EARNED THE AMERICAN VOLLEYBALL COACHES ASSOCIATION TEAM ACADEMIC HONOR ROLL EVERY YEAR SINCE COACH MARTINS AND COACH ROSS HAVE BEEN A TEAM AND HAVE CONTINUED ITS TRADITION WITH COACH SEIFERT ADDED TO THE STAFF

COLLEGE OF SAINT ELIZABETH - COACHING RECORD

SAINT ELIZABETH UNIVERSITY (4 SEASONS) I led the CSE Women’s Volleyball program for 4 seasons and guided the Screaming Eagles to its most successful campaign in program history in 2012. The team posted the most wins ever in the history of the program (22W), the best overall record (22W-7L), the most wins in the NEAC since CSE joined the conference (6W), the best team record in the NEAC since CSE joined the conference (6W-6L) and tied the highest finish ever in the NEAC. In 2013, despite losing 4 starters and the starting setter for most of the season, the Eagles finished over .500 at the end of the season for the 3rd consecutive year. Of note, those were the only 3 seasons (2011-12-13) that the program had ever been over .500. The Eagles had 5 players ranked in the top 50 nationally for Aces per Set in the past 3 seasons, including a 14th best national ranking in 2012 and a 17th best in 2013. The team was also ranked 11th nationally in the same category in 2011, 12th in 2012 and 21st in 2013. CSE was the highest ranked DIII team in NJ in that category as well for the first time (2nd highest in 2011-12). The Eagles were also the only NJ DIII team to earn the coveted American Volleyball Coaches Association Team All-Academic Award for 2012-13 AND 2013-14.