Despite the close matches the Dragons and the Hilltoppers have had in the past 6 years, Summit has been in the losing end of each of those matchups. To prevent another loss, the team was going to have to rely upon an equally good defensive effort as they showed versus New Providence and put Kent Place on their heels with their serving attack. SHS lost the match 19-25, 18-25 having achieved only 1 of the 2 objectives. Although the Maroon and White tallied 34 digs, 2nd best only to the New Providence match, Summit had its 2nd worst serving performance of the season at 81.6% and the worst ace % of the season at 5.3%. Kent Place on the other hand served at a 92.4% clip with 8 aces. In a match decided by a combined 13 points, the 8-2 ace advantage by KP and the 7-3 disadvantage in errors by SHS was truly the deciding factor in the match.
Set 1 was a close affair through most of the set as both teams showed their offensive strengths and weaknesses and had many long rallies due to their defensive efforts. When Carmel Barsh put an overpass down with authority to get the team to within one at 15-16, the set was still anyone's to take. In a matter of minutes though, a 5-0 run slammed the Hilltoppers' hopes to the ground. That run by the Dragons was fueled by 2 kills generated off free balls given by the Maroon and White, 1 passing error and 1 hitting error by SHS and a block by Kent Place. A Dragon service error gave Summit the ball back trailing 16-21. A Barsh kill and a KP hitting error had Summit within striking distance at 18-21 but an untimely, unforced Summit hitting error turned the tide at 18-22. Summit was unable to win a point on its serve receive without a KP error occurring while the Dragons hit for 3 kills on a 3-1 run that sealed the set at 25-19.
The second set was truly a tale of 2 halves. Although the set was deadlocked at 3 early, KP went on a 14-2 run that seemingly had the Hilltoppers on the brink of an ugly loss. The run featured 5 hitting errors, 1 blocking error, 2 service errors and 1 free ball error by the Maroon and White. Kent Place did hit Summit for 4 aces in the run but Summit had plenty of opportunities to side-out which they were unable to do.
But at 17-5, SHS then outscored the Dragons 13-8 the rest of the way to finish the set 18-25. At one point, Summit cut the lead in half, trailing only by 6 at 20-14. But from that point on, SHS committed 2 hitting errors and 1 service error to end any hopes they had of finishing the comeback.
Alisha McDonnell was outstanding running the offense that was missing 2 starters, getting 13 kills from 6 different players. She chipped in 2 of her own, tallied 11 assists, dug up 6 balls and was a perfect 8/8 from the service line with 1 ace in an otherwise poor serving performance by the team.
Summit will look to right the ship this Tuesday versus the Plainfield Cardinals.
Highlights coming later tonight
JV REFUSES TO LOSE
The JV Squad used its serving and offensive firepower to once again overwhelm its opponent by a 25-14, 25-15 score. Abby Doyle took over the first set, hitting for 2 aces, 2 kills and dishing out 6 assists to push Summit comfortably in front of the Dragons. Megan Gregory led the squad with 3 kills and Sarah Maldonado followed suit with 3 of her own to pace the Maroon and White offense. Ava Calabrese and Gabbie Guidecci combined for 5 aces to again show their fans that this young team can do a lot of damage by just serving tough and being very productive on offense.
The second set was much of the same but Maddie Murphy paved the way to the lopsided win with 5 aces and Luisa Esquivel followed closely behind with 4 to give the offense more than enough room to operate. Sarah Maldonado hit for 2 kills to pace the offense.
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