For the 2nd year in a row, Summit hosted a county game, the first time that has occurred since the 2010-2011 seasons. Last year, SHS outlasted the Roselle Park Panthers in a 3 set battle, 25-13, 24-26, 25-8). The Crusaders of Governor Livingston were the 2015 Squad's opponent and SHS did not disappoint a season record crowd of nearly 60 fans in dispatching of GL in a 2-0 victory, 25-16, 25-18.
Summit opened its 2015 county run with Val Guzman hitting a blistering serve that created a free ball opportunity for Angela Scott to put away. GL was able to dig the ball up but the subsequent pass was off target and SHS started with a 1-0 lead. Two consecutive aces by Angela Scott had the team up 7-2 and the Hilltoppers were sensing they could pressure the Crusaders with their serving attack.
The team continued pressuring the Crusaders from the service line and Alana Gartenberg found the open court for a kill as Summit had a 10-4 lead nearing the midpoint of the set. Casey Nardino then ripped 2 straight aces to give the Hilltoppers an insurmountable 13-4 lead and the set seemed to be in control. The Crusaders went on a 7-1 run though that brought the premature celebration to a halt as only a GL error gave the ball back to SHS to extend the lead once again to 15-11. Scott settled things down with a kill that pushed the lead back up by 5 and 1 more GL error had the Hilltoppers cruising again at 17-11.
GL cut the lead down to 5 at 18-13 but Guzman's serving forced an ace and 2 hitting errors by the Crusaders which had Summit in the driver's seat at 21-13. Sandra Bazalar stepped in for Scott and she put the nail in set 1 as she hit for an ace and Rau Soares ripped a kill to close out the set 25-16.
Summit scattered 6 kills (2 by Gartenberg) as the team hit for a .136 but the damage was done from the service line as the Hilltoppers nailed 7 aces (ace% - 35%) while serving at an 88% clip. Combine that with only giving up 1 ace and the Hilltoppers were feeling pretty good about their set 2 prospects.
Set 2 couldn't have started off more poorly for the Hilltoppers and memories of the Linden breakdown in set 3 came flooding back to the team as 3 hitting errors and a passing error by the Hilltoppers set up the stage for a 5-0 GL lead. Only an attack error by the Crusaders halted the bad start and Val Guzman got the team settled again with her serving as she hit for an ace and forced a hitting error to get SHS right back at 3-5. Casey Nardino then nailed a kill and Angela Scott followed up with 2 consecutive aces to even things up at 6 and the match took on a different tone.
Down 11-9, GL committed a service error which brought Nardino to serve and as the outside hitter has been doing for the last 5 matches, she broke the game open with 3 aces and 2 serves which forced 2 hitting errors to extend the Summit lead to 16-9. Rau Soares had the Hilltoppers had the team up 17-11 after a great right side kill but to the Crusader's credit, their team refused to give up and ran off 5 straight points to get GL to within 1 at 17-16. Unlike the prior match vs. Linden though, the team found the key kill and Scott provided it. Grace Galuppo followed it up with an ace and a few points later, Alana Gartenberg got another kill to get SHS to a 20-17 lead. A Scott kill and 2 more Nardino kills later, the team had finally dispatched of the Crusaders, 25-18.
Summit hit for 7 kills but it also had 7 errors led by Nardino's 3 kills and .333 hitting %. SHS won yet again the battle of the service line, scoring 7 aces (29%-ace%) -Nardino yet again leading the way with 3 aces- and a 92% serving %. Summit gave up no aces in the set and the squad walked away knowing that the 2 utmost goals for the match, win the ace battle and the serve reception error battle, had resulted in the 2 set win.
Summit improved to 5W-10L but most importantly has started to improve its home record (3W-5L) after a 3W-1L record over the last 4 matches at home. The Hilltoppers have a minimum of 8 matches remaining in the 2015 season, 3 at home and 5 on the road. The team will look to finish the year over .500 at home and improve their current 2W-5L record on the road.
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