The Hilltoppers traveled to Mo-Beard this past Saturday to compete in the Fall Classic, a tournament that SHS has not been better than a 5 seed in the playoffs in this tourney and have never reached higher than the semis in the last 4 years.
Summit played versus Wardlaw Hartridge, Mo Beard, Parsippany Hills and then Villa Walsh in the 8 team, 2 division Pool Play. The Hilltoppers met Wardlaw first in a preview of the match to come this Friday and came away with a decisive 25-19, 25-16 win where the serving attack was the difference in the match.
Game 2 saw the Hilltoppers go up against the host team, Morristown Beard and the match as decided early as the Crimson could not deal with the Hilltopper serve and the Maroon and White put away any opportunity it had on offense. Final score, 25-13, 25-12.
Game 3 had the Vikings of Parsippany Hills match up against the Hilltoppers in an old Iron Hills Conference match-up. Summit prevailed late thanks to key kills and consistent serving pressure by a 25-22, 25-16 score.
The final match up was against Villa Walsh, the #2 team in the other division who had taken the #1 Oak Knoll to the brink in its first match. Summit jumped out to an early lead but was not able to hold on to it late as key hitting errors and a couple of service errors turned the match to Villa's favor 25-21. The second match was a back and forth affair and a late Taylor Thompson kill was the difference as time expired to give SHS the win 19-18.
Summit finished pool play 7W-1L in sets but Oak Knoll was a bit better, finishing 7W-0L-1T, getting the #1 seed overall and SHS #2.
Summit had a bye in Round 1 but faced a re-match against the #3 Villa Walsh squad in the semis. The rubber match (a 30 point match) seemed to be going Summit's way early with the team holding a 26-21 lead late in the 20 minute cap match. Villa then stepped up its serving game and within a couple of minutes, the squad had knotted up the score at 26 after another key hitting error. But then the Summit defense woke up and a key dig by Ava Williamson led directly to a Summit kill that gave the Maroon and White a 27-26 lead with under 30 seconds to play. Summit served for the match and had an opportunity to win on a transition attack but failed to do so which allowed Villa to do it in return to knot up the score at 27 as time expired.
The final point was a microcosm of the entire season for the Hilltoppers, showing both the promise of the future and the lack of experience of the same youth. The pressure on the serve receive was enormous as Villa served its most dangerous server at the last point. Summit handled the serve well enough but couldn't generate a good offensive set and in transition dug up a great ball that led to an attack attempt that resulted in an error and ended the match 28-27.
Summit ended the day 7W-2L and 3rd place overall, the best finish at the tourney by a Summit team at the Fall Classic.
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