The Hilltoppers came into the last half of the week looking to bounce back from a couple of difficult losses to Columbia and Linden. The team had to knock off the elite in the Mountain Division and #4 in the county, cross-street rival Kent Place.
In their first encounter, Summit was able to hang on and compete for half of each set but the Dragon serving would be the difference in the match, allowing KP to stifle the Summit offense and control the second half of the match, cruising to a solid 2 set victory. SHS was looking to rewrite that story in match 2.
Set 1 saw the Dragons get 2 quick kills by their talented 9th grade OH and contributed 2 errors and quickly fell behind 4-0. Macpherson finally put the end of the run with a kill from the outside which got the Hilltoppers off the mat. Nardino followed that up with another kill and Liu pounded an ace down to zone 1 and forced an error by their OH to knot the score at 4. And then the match really began.
No matter how hard the Dragons hit or how well they looked versus the Hilltoppers, the team just kept executing their game and taking opportunities when given despite the Kent Place serving attack. By rotation 6, Summit had climbed out of the 4-0 hole, had outscored the Dragons 9-5 and saw the scoreboard show 9-9.
By the time Barsh had completed her service rotation, the team saw themselves up 11-10.
As expected, the Dragons did not fold but unlike their first match, Summit refused to give in to the serving pressure and kept making play after play to pressure the KP defense. After a long rally ended with a thunderous kill by the Dragons from the outside leading to a Dragon 15-14 lead, their first since the opening moments of the match. The tide seemed to have turned.
A pass by Goudreau on the subsequent play led to an attack attempt that was dug up on the next play. Another hit from the outside by the Dragons was handled by Liu and Nardino tried to put the ball down in transition but to no avail. The subsequent Kent Place Attack was dug up by Trindell and WILLIAMSON set Skrobala up for a well placed dump shot that knotted the score at 15. The energy was palpable and the Summit faithful were hopeful that this would be the day SHS could finish off a top seed.
Within the scope of the next 10 points, Kent Place took control by a two point lead at 20-18 but yet again the Hilltoppers fought back to the dismay of the Dragons with a Macpherson kill and a Goudreau block that ratchet up the tension as Summit tied the score at 20-20.
Kent Place School took the lead at 21-20 and 22-21 but SHS not only tied the score but, at 22-22, Barsh hit for a kill out of the middle to take the lead 23-22. KP struck back with 2 kills and had their first match point. Summit had 2 attempts to knot the score up at 24 but could not convert and fell 25-23 after an expected outside kill by the Dragons.
Summit managed only 2 aces in set 1 but the squad served at an 88% clip and despite giving up 5 aces, Summit hit for 12 kills while yielding only 4 errors, the main factor in their first set success. Although Nardino led the way with 4 kills and no errors, it was the fact that SHS had 5 other players getting at least 1 kill, often out of system, that led to their success and close set loss.
Set 2 saw the continuation of the Summit fighting spirit as they fought back to a 2-2 tie but the physical spirit and energy waned after a draining first set and KP took advantage, finally cracking the Hilltopper receive game, going on a 9-0 run to blow open the set. Summit cut the lead down to 5 after a Dragon hitting error but Summit couldn’t sustain the momentum and eventually fell to the Dragons 25-11.
Summit managed only 2 kills in the set, a product of many factors, but the team just simply couldn’t maintain the momentum into set 2.
Summit served at an 86% clip and were led offensively by Nardino who hit for 5 kills, a kill % of 35.7% and a .286 efficiency. Next up, New Providence, #2 in Mountain Division.
No comments:
Post a Comment