Opening the Spring Break Week with a rival match against the Cranford Cougars on the road was intense and satisfying after celebrating a big win but the meat of the schedule was the home-and-home matchup with the ALJ Crusaders as this would be the 2nd and 3rd time the teams would have met in a mere seven days.
In the opening match-up at SHS, a 25-19, 25-5 win, the Hilltoppers won the key points late in game 1 and dominated from the service line in game 2 to finish off the match. Summit out-killed ALJ 20-4 and had an 11-5 advantage from the service line in aces to establish a 33-11 overall scoring advantage over ALJ to win the match.
In match #2, the Crusaders were looking to improve on their second game performance in match #1 as the squad clearly proved in game 1 they could compete with the Maroon and White but could not cope with the serving barrage of the Hilltoppers in game 2. Summit yet again swept match #2 with a 25-10, 25-13 score line which seemed to indicate that the match 1 game 1 score was the aberration, not the norm. Again, Summit held a kill advantage in the match, 22-9, but only hit for 5 aces. However, the Top still held a commanding 28-12 scoring advantage but ALJ had cut the Hilltopper advantage by 6 in just 1 match. The Summit serving attack was the difference despite only hitting for 5 aces as it rated a 2.19/4 (4=ace) for the match but it kept the ALJ squad from being in system most of the match. In this match, Vivian Roberts and Captain Erin Vostal were unstoppable in the front with a combined 15 kills out of 24 attempts and only 2 errors (62.5 kill % and a .541 efficiency) while 6 different Hilltoppers had at least 1 kill. Captain Kiera Stocks and Gabbie Guidetti anchored the serve receive with a flawless 8/8 reception rate with 5/8 perfect passes and a combined 2.625 pass rating. Could the Crusaders improve more in a mere 24 hours? Would they have a game plan to slow the SHS offense?
Match #3 in Summit´s main gym was the most meaningful of the three matches as a Quarter-Final berth was up for grabs, the first since 2016 for the Hilltoppers as SHS had seen first round exits in the tournament on a consistent basis since then. Summit again relied on a powerful serving attack and a steady offensive output from multiple sources to generate a 17-12 scoring advantage which carried the team to a 25-16 game 1 win. But the warning was clear, ALJ had figured out that if they could not stop the Summit offense at the point of attack, they would force Summit´s Conference Player of the Week Kasey Walsh to play defense and eliminate the quarterback as much as possible. Walsh was the team leader in digs at the end of the match, a reflection of the game plan employed by ALJ. The result was clear early, Summit could still score but ALJ was getting more opportunities to do the same and converting more.
ALJ and SHS were locked in an early close battle as the teams traded points and serves and the Crusader game plan was unfolding. At 5-5, Summit found reliable Sarah Maldonado on the OH for a kill which sparked a 7-0 run behind Meghan Tarashuk´s serving. In the run, SHS had 2 aces by Tarashuk and one more kill by Maldonado. ALJ used its own serving attack later in the game to climb out of a 14-8 hole to within 3 at 14-11 but Vivian Roberts put down a thunderous kill to relieve the pressure and followed up with another one in transition to give Walsh an opportunity to score on an ace and the 6 point lead was re-established at 17-11. Again the Crusaders climbed back to within 3 but an untimely service error -from an ALJ perspective- gave the ball back to Summit at 18-14 which allowed Sarah Brennan to rip off 3 consecutive aces and put the Crusaders on life support at 21-14. Catherine Eldridge got into the mix late with a dump kill and a spike out of the middle which had SHS at the doorstep of the game 1 win which was capped off appropriately enough by a Maldonado kill for a 25-16 game 1 win.
Game 2 was much of the same but ALJ was able to hang in with the Hilltoppers longer than in game 1 and actually saw their squad lead 9-8 at the end of 5 rotations. But a short rally later saw Alexis Barnes dig a perfect ball in transition that ended at the hands of Eva Oberhuber for the kill and that began a 5-0 run behind Vostal´s serving which had Roberts tally another 2 kills and Vostal hit for an ace. At 15-10, Summit looked to be in control but 2 hitting errors by the Maroon and White and a kill by ALJ saw the lead dwindle to 2 at 15-13. A ball handling error called on the Crusaders broke the momentum but another hitting error by the SHS offense had ALJ close, down only 14-16. Maldonado came to the rescue again as a kill by the Captain led to a Stocks´ ace and despite another SHS hitting error, Summit held an 18-15 lead.
Perhaps the defining rally of the match occurred at this point with ALJ serving and having to win the game to stay alive and to keep the pressure on the Hilltoppers. A tough serve was handled by Stocks and Eldridge was able to put it in play although the Crusaders dug it up. Maldonado passed the ensuing free ball and ripped an attack on the return pass that once again the Crusaders kept alive and sent over as a free ball. Stocks sent a perfect pass that was set to Vostal for an attack to no avail but again the pass - set - combo repeated itself off the subsequent free ball and this time the relentless pressure was too much and Vostal ended it for a 19-15 lead.
Tarashuk stepped up to serve and the pressure on the ALJ serve receive led to a free ball return error, 2 aces and 2 kills by Maldonado and Vostal which all but wrapped up the game at 24-15. What looked like a game ending attack by Maldonado was called an over the net error and that threw the SHS squad into a minor tailspin, allowing the Crusaders to come back to within 4 at 24-20 despite a Hilltopper time-out. The game ended anti-climactically with an ALJ service error but the test they posed was passed with flying colors by the Summit squad.
Summit continued to serve at a blistering pace (93.9%) and had an ace percentage of 22.4% which led to the team scoring on 61.2% of their serves! Summit allowed only 6 aces in the match but did have a high error rate of 24.2%. Summit again was lethal as a team with a 30.2% kill percentage which kept their high errors to 19% for a .111 efficiency for the match. Six players again had at least 1 kill but Maldonado (.417 efficiency), Roberts (.273 efficiency) and Vostal (.273 efficiency) provided the positive stability the team needed throughout the match. Walsh, playing the entire first game but only front row in the second game, had a phenomenal outing with 16 assists despite being targeted on defense. 9th grader Zoe Zacharias, playing only in game 2 from the back row, added 3 more as she continues to gain valuable experience as one of the future setters for this squad.
Summit will have the long weekend to rest and be ready for their only practice in preparation for their Quarter-Final matchup against the Vikings of Union Catholic, in Scotch Plains-Fanwood, at 5:15 on Tuesday, April 6th.
No comments:
Post a Comment