In a much anticipated JV rematch with Rahway, Summit came into the game playing its best volleyball of the season having defeated Kent Place, Roselle Catholic and Dayton after their surprising loss to Rahway in the county tournament. Rahway was also looking to prove that the earlier Summit win at SHS had been a fluke in this rubber match.
Summit played a good first set but lost late 24-26 despite getting 9 service points from Christina Gangi and Alisha McDonnell. Summit's offense was effective but late serve receive errors cost the team the first set.
Coach Ross sent in the 9th graders in set 2 and the combination of some "veteran" JV players with the core of the 9th graders yielded great results as the squad in the 2nd set led 6-2 early and never really lost control of the set thanks to the serving of Taylor Thompson who came up with SHS holding a tenuous 9-8 lead and after a couple of aces had the team up 13-9, reestablishing the 4 point lead they had enjoyed early. Summit maintained that lead as it entered the latter stages of set 2 (17-13) and Katie Samay blew the game open by hitting for an ace and forcing the Indians into numerous errors as her rotation increased the lead to 21-13, a lead they would never relinquish in route to a 25-16 set 2 win.
Set 3 saw the return of the most experienced JV players and the set did not start off as the coaching staff had hoped. Despite the team opening up a 5-1 lead, the Hilltoppers gave it all back in one rotation as the squad gave up 2 consecutive aces and saw Rahway tie the score at 5. The inconsistent serve receive continued to be a problem for the Hilltoppers as the squad couldn't find any offensive consistency due to the poor passing. Rahway took advantage, getting kills off easy free balls that saw the Indians take control of the deciding set 11-8 after 6 rotations. Trailing 15-9, Christina Gangi stepped up and served 3 consecutive service points to get SHS within reach at 15-12. Olivia Elko followed up after a service break with 2 service points of her own to get Summit to within 2 at 16-18. The celebration was short lived though as Rahway served often and served tough in the next rotation to take a seemingly insurmountable lead at 22-17.
A fortuitous foot fault gave the ball back to Summit and Taylor Thompson trailing 22-18. Thompson hit for 3 aces in a stretch of serves that had the Indians all out of system and gave Gangi 2 opportunities to kill the ball, which she did not miss. Thompson had 7 straight service points as the Hilltopper defense and offense was flawless during the stretch.
JV's record stands at 14W-6L and should the team beat Oak Knoll, they will have sole possession of the record of wins and winning % in program history.
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