The young squad took the court against a much more experienced Governor Livingston team who were looking to continue their winning ways against the Hilltoppers after beating them 2-0 in the last encounter in 2019. The squads finished 1W-1L for the season with Summit taking the early season matchup and the Lancers taking the late season one.
Today though, it was the Summit Hilltoppers who came out ahead with a 25-18, 16-25, 25-20 win versus a tough 9th grade squad of Gov. Livingston.
Game 1 was truly the Emily Demm and the Julia Nardino show as the game was decided from the service line more than any other facet of the game. The two athletes combined for 9 of the 12 service points the team got in the opening game. Nardino got the Hilltoppers into control through the middle of the match as the team rallied behind her 4-0 service run which got SHS to 14 points in the game. Despite a service break, Summit got another service point from Emily Griffith but the Maroon and White could not keep the service pressure up and saw Governor Livingston crawl back into the match.
But then Demm came up after Summit had reached 19 points but still only led by 1 after a Lancer service error and proceeded to rattle off 6-0 run that closed out the deciding game and match, 25-20.
The second game saw the Lancers win the battle of the serve, committing less errors and hitting for more aces which was the difference of the game and it showed on the scoreboard as the Governor Livingston squad pushed the match into a third game.
The third game was a game of runs that were very spread apart. Governor Livingston started the game serving but it was Demm again that settled things down by going on a 6-0 run to lead the Hilltopper attack in rotation 1 and settle the team down. Unfortunately, the Maroon and White were unable to score 1 service point in the next 5 rotations and that kept the deciding game under the control of Governor Livingston. The Lancers, however, were also showing the nerves of a third game and could not capitalize on the Summit serving misses thus keeping SHS in the game. And eventually, in rotation 7, Demm hurt the Lancers again with a 4-0 run that pushed Summit to an 18-14 lead and then Nardino followed up with a 3-0 run of her own to get the Top to the crucial 20 point mark (85% win rate if you reach 20 points first). Griffith again got a crucial point late to push the lead to 24-19 and the rest was academic as SHS closed it out with a tough, well-earned 25-20 game 3 win for the match victory.
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