The Summit Lady Hilltoppers knew the match versus the Rahway Indians was going to be a tough one since both teams have similar talent but with the team's serve receive in question and new serve receive formations being unveiled, there was a sense of uncertainty in this matchup. The 2-0 loss to the Indians by 25-21, 25-16 scores though were a surprise in the manner by which they occurred. With the team passing at a 1.84 rating for the match and only giving up 5 aces while also getting 27 digs in just 2 sets, a committed fan would have thought SHS would've won. However, the squad's 6 serving errors and 14 hitting errors were enough to derail an otherwise outstanding passing day.
Game one's 25-21 loss was a huge red flag and set up what was to be the end result of another home loss for the Hilltoppers. SHS passed at a season high 2.15 rating, gave up only 3 aces and dug 9 balls in the set. The Hilltopper Achilles heel were the 5 serving errors that stopped the Summit squad's momentum at every turn. The team missed their serve once every 4 serving attempts and saw their efforts to come back in the game thwarted three times late due to missed serves. The team hit for 7 kills but had 8 hitting errors as well which sealed their hopes for a game 1 win. Summit out killed Rahway 7-6 and were only outscored by 1 (9-8) in the game but SHS served at 73% for the game while Rahway had 79%, the factor which decided the game. The team's disappointment was palpable in between games as the Hilltoppers could only blame their own miscues for the loss.
Game 2 started much like the first with the score close through the first 4 rotations (8-8) but then a rash of hitting errors and less than perfect passing opened a gap in the scoring that the team could not overcome (15-9 score) in rotation 5. Summit had no offensive answer to Rahway despite digging 18 balls and only giving up 3 aces. The Hilltopper offense could only muster 4 kills while suffering 6 errors. The squad did fix its serving woes going 15/16 with 2 aces but the lack of offense undid the team in the game and the match.
The Hilltoppers have an exceptionally important week coming up with 4 matches in 5 days. Summit will take on Chatham on Monday, New Providence on Tuesday, Plainfield on Thursday and Roselle on Friday. With only 2 wins in the ledger, Summit will take every match as a "must" win as the team will look to find the consistent effort in all three phases of the game that pushed them to a win over Linden earlier in the year.
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