Both squads end up 1W-1L for the week after 2 tight battles against the Cougars of Cranford and a serving centered battle against the Wardlaw-Hartridge Rams.
Summit finally took a set from Cranford for the first time since 2011 but could not finish the job dropping the following 2 sets by excruciating 25-27 scores. The evenly matched squads slugged it out early with neither team being able to muster much separation. An Alisha McDonnell serve led to an outside hitting error by the Cougars which had Summit all tied up at 11 on Cranford's Senior Night at rotation 7. A few rotations later, Summit got a kill from Kate MacPherson to tie the score at 17, followed it up with 2 Kiera Stocks aces and another tough serve that forced a Cranford error and suddenly SHS had a 20-17 lead late in set 1. Cranford stormed back to tie up the score at 21 but Taylor Thompson hit for a huge kill after a Tessa Pulgar dig to give the Hilltoppers a 22-21 lead they would not relinquish. Thompson and Micaela Nardino added two more kills in the 3-0 run that closed out set 1 25-21 for the first set win vs. Cranford since 2011.
Set 2 saw the Maroon and White continue on a roll, jumping out to a 4-0 lead behind McDonnell's serving (1 ace), a pair of kills by Nardino and Thompson and a block by Lauren Trindell and Thompson. Summit held on to that lead through the first half of the set as SHS led 13-9 after a Nardino kill. A few rotations later Cranford had taken control of the set with a 9-1 run fueled by Summit's inability to score and error filled attacks. Thompson stopped the run with a kill but Summit was still looking at a 16-19 deficit a couple of rotations later. A Trindell and MacPherson block sparked the Hilltoppers and after an Ava Williamson ace, the Hilltoppers had tied it up at 20. Trindell and MacPherson continued torturing the Cranford attack with another block that gave SHS a 20-19 lead but an untimely service error stopped that momentum. Despite the fact that the Cougars were able to take the lead at 24-23, a Williamson dig led to a McDonnell kill that surprised the Cougars and the Hilltoppers had staved off a Cougar set point. Carmel Barsh followed suit with a thunderous kill out of the middle to give the Maroon and White their first match point versus Cranford in 6 years but the team could not finish the job as a passing and hitting error gave Cranford all the chances it needed to seal the set after a long rally that ended, predictably enough, with a Summit hitting error.
The deciding set was a bit different in that the Cougars controlled most of the action. The set began predictably enough as both teams found themselves knotted at 6 early on but the Cougars went on a 4-0 run in which Cranford hit for only 1 kill to take a 10-6 lead. Summit responded down 13-9 with a 7-0 run of their own with 2 MacPherson kills, 1 by Thompson and a Williamson ace during that stretch which saw the Maroon and White take a 16-13 lead. Cranford then ripped off 5 straight points which again saw SHS trail 18-16 but true to form, a few rotations later, a MacPherson kill had the teams knotted up at 20. Summit led 23-21 after a Cougar error but a service error of their own erased that momentum and saw the Blue and Gold tie up the score after another Summit hitting error. A key Barsh kill in transition gave SHS another match point but a Cougar muffle attack had the score even once again. Stunningly, Cranford had a service error and Summit was given another match point but another key kill by Cranford knotted up the score. Summit could not handle the Cougar serve and gave up and ace and yielded a kill off a free ball that had the Hilltoppers down and out at 25-17.
Summit had a 35 kill performance on the night, led by MacPherson and Thompson who each hit for 9 kills apiece. McDonnell ran the offense to its most productive match of the year with 29 assists. Williamson led the team with 3 aces and passed 31/33 serves while also leading the team with 12 digs. Trindell was simply a wall, notching 5 blocks and chipping in 2 kills.
JV FIGHTS VALIANTLY BUT LOSES IN 2
JV was simply overwhelmed in set 1 by the Cougars as the squad's usually powerful serve attack was nullified by Cranford's serve receive and effective attack which out-performed SHS's offensive capabilities. Summit dropped set 1 13-25.
The second set was more of the same but the Cougars became human and missed a number of serves while the Summit serve attack, led by Abby Doyle, finally got on track and kept the team in it until Annabella Yorio and Sarah Maldonado got on track offensively and started moving the Maroon and White toward a set win at 22-22. But the last few points were decided by serve receive and Cranford won that battle as the JV squad couldn't quite make the key pass and dropped the set and match 25-23 for its 4th consecutive loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment