Summit traveled to Scotch Plains to take on the #9 Union Catholic Vikings in the 1st round of the UCIAC Tournament. Summit was a clear underdog but the team would show great resolve and compete with the #1 seed for most of the match despite the 25-16, 25-15 loss.
Summit won the coin flip and chose to serve but that win was the only thing early on that the Hilltoppers would win. UC quickly put down a kill to side-out and rattled off 5 straight service points to take a 6-0 lead. Summit struggled to find any rhythm offensively and UC kept expanding their lead through rotation 5 as the Vikings took an 18-7 lead. The game seemed lost but that's when the SHS fans could see something had changed with the Hilltopper offense as Casey Nardino began to score out of the front row. Although UC won game 1 25-16, Summit went toe-to-toe with the Vikings, ending the game with a 7-7 run and forcing a time-out at 23-16.
Nardino scored 6 points in the game to lead the Hilltopper scoring (2 kills- 1 ace- 3 blocks).
Summit was confident they could play with the Vikings after ending game 1 on a 7-7 run and came out more aggressive to start game 2. In rotation 5, Sammy Auerbach stepped up to serve and rattled off 5 straight service points (2 aces) to give the Hilltoppers a 10-8 lead over the #9 team in the state. Summit forced a UC time-out which led to another Auerbach serve that had the Vikings out of system but the MAroon and White committed a crucial hitting error to end Auerbach's serving run. By rotation 7 UC had regined the lead but could not pull away from the Hilltoppers as the team kept game 2 close trailing 18-15 late in the game. But that was as close as the Hilltoppers could get as their serve receive let them down in rotation 11 and UC ran off 6 consecutive points to close out the game and match 25-15.
Nardino paced the offense again with 3 kills and Auerback led all servers with 6 service points and 2 aces in the game. Nardino scored 9 points (5 kills- 1 ace- 3 blocks) in the loss which accounted for 60% of all the Hilltopper earned points. Jocelyn Mendez had a great passing day, passing safely in 15/16 receptions at a 2.11 pass rating.
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