The SHS Hilltoppers walked over, literally, to Kent Place to take on the Dragons in hopes to turn around their winless week. The matchup is always a tough one for the Hilltoppers as the team has only defeated the Dragons once since 2010 (1W-7L) and KP was one of the early losses for the amazing 2011 team who went 21W-3L.
Summit fell short 25-16, 25-19 in a match that was fraught with wasted opportunities by the Hilltoppers. In game 1, Val Guzman opened up a quick 2-0 lead through some tough serving but the Dragons broke serve after a hitting error and the match settled into a back and forth affair thanks to the missed serves and hitting errors of Summit. Looking at a 10-8 deficit, the team was left to wonder how it could have been down since SHS had seemed to control the tempo of the match early on. One blocking error, 1 attack error and 4 service errors had done their damage to the Summit start and it came back to haunt the team as KP rattled off 5 straight points at this juncture to take the lead 14-8. A Casey Nardino kill broke the momentum but another service error gave the ball back to KP at 15-10.
The Hilltoppers crawled to within 2 at 14-16 behind a Rau Soares kill but yet another service error killed the momentum and the deflation of emotion continued with SHS hitting for an attack error, a blocking error and a free ball error to give KP a 20-14 lead they would never relinquish. The game closed a few minutes later at 25-16.
Rau Soares and Casey Nardino led the way with 2 kills apiece in game 1 and Val Guzman scored the only ace in a set that saw the Hilltoppers serve only 11/17 balls in (65%) which was the main culprit for the loss.
Game 2 provided a better start as Val Guzman hit for a kill and then pounded 2 aces in a row to get Summit on top 6-2. After a Nardino kill extended the lead to 7-4, KP used numerous SHS's attack errors to tie the score at 10-10. Although Summit opened the serving attack well in game 2, the hitting did not and Summit squandered the early lead with 4 hitting errors in the first 10 points of the match.
A kill by Gabby Mejia and Nardino had the Hilltoppers up by 1 at 14-13 but a service error changed Summit's fortunes again as KP went on a 6-2 run that had the Dragons up 20-16 before a back row attack error forced by a Nardino swing stopped the run at 20-17. A few points later, Nardino came through again with a kill to get Summit to within 3 at 22-19. But SHS could not capitalize on the momentum as yet another service error killed Summit's chances as the missed serve sparked a 3-0 run that ended the game and match 25-19.
Casey Nardino led the way with 5 kills and Val Guzman paced a faulty serving offense with 4 aces. Angela Scott was again the best passer of the day with a 1.88 rating.
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