Next Monday and Tuesday, the Hilltoppers will host rivals Rahway Indians and travel to the Tigers of Linden.
These two upcoming matchups should go a long way in determining the success of this season for JV and Varsity. Linden was swept by the JV Hilltpoppers but Rahway stunned SHS at Rahway to split the regular season series last year. Summit did beat the Indians in the first round of the county tournament to take the rubber match in 2019.
Varsity swept the series with a 2-1 (25-17, 23-25, 25-19) victory on the road and a 2-0 (25-22, 25-22) win at home in tightly contested matches. In the home match, SHS out-killed Rahway 23-14, out-blocked the Indians 2-0 and out-aced them 8-6 for a total score of 33-20 yet the match was a 3 point affair each game.
Although Summit opened this year with a scrimmage and a regular season victory vs. New Providence, Rahway fell to the Pioneers in 2 games just this week. Outstanding serving has helped the Hilltoppers roll to a 2W-0L start this season. Can it do the the same against the Indians?
The Linden Tigers have had Summit´s number for nearly a decade. In 2017, Summit dropped both matches to Linden by 2-1 scores, in 2018 the Hilltoppers won only 1 of 3 matches and lost both match-ups last year. The theme is generally the same for the Hilltoppers lack of success versus the Tigers: serve receive difficulty or hitting errors.
In 2017, the Top hit for 6 aces but yielded 12 and were out of system more often that not in match 1. In match 2, the Hilltoppers out-aced Linden 12-8 but had 23 hitting errors in the match.
In 2018, Linden won the season series 2-1 with total scores of 104-92 which showed Linden with a +5 advantage in kills, a -1 deficit in blocks and a +8 advantage in aces. In the 1 match that Summit won however, a 2-1 result of 24-26, 25-23, 25-23, Summit took the match by out-scoring their opponents by 45-36 (30-19 on kills). But Summit did yield 36 points to Linden on faults, serving/passing and hitting errors while the Hilltoppers were the beneficiaries of only 23 of those points from Linden. Linden tries to limit the Summit offense and counts on errors by their opponent so that they do not have to score as much to win a match.
In 2019 that was very evident as both matches went 3 games with Linden winning both by 2-1 margins. Summit managed only 37 kills to Linden´s 39. Linden out-blocked Summit 8-4 but was out-aced by SHS 25-13. Summit had 54 hitting and service errors however and the Tigers only 36. That error margin negated any serving advantage earned by the Top. Should the Hilltoppers continue their current form, it should pose a real threat the the Linden dominance over the Hilltoppers in recent history.
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