The 2021 pre-season opened with 3 scrimmages versus Kent Place, Payne Tech and at Wardlaw on 8/27.
JV took care of the Kent Place Dragons 2-0 and continued their recent dominance over their neighbors. Varsity struggled handling the Dragons service attack and dropped all 3 sets to Kent Place. In the two sets that were recorded, Zacharias and Roberts had the only 2 aces of the match for Summit but their Morris Avenue rivals hit for 9. Roberts had 4 kills on 8 swings and Webb had 2 from 4 attacks to lead the Hilltoppers attack. Both athletes also hit at a team leading .500 efficiency.
Defensively, the Maroon and White could not keep KP attacks off the ground and managed only 9 total digs with Laws and Thompson notching 2 digs apiece. The blocking defense of the Top was outstanding though with the team notching 5 blocks in those 2 sets, Nardino with 2, Wauters with 1, Oberhuber with 1 and Roberts with 1. Roberts led the team with 6 points.
Payne Tech had to cancel their scrimmage at all levels due to Covid related issues and the JV and Varsity squads engaged in an intra-squad scrimmage with JV starting each set with a 10-0 lead. JV dominated set 1 and won 25-11. Varsity bounced back with a 25-21 win in set 2 and a 25-18 win in set 3.
Barlow and Noa caused the Junior Varsity many problems from the service line and led the squad with 7 aces apiece. JV forced the Varsity Team into many out of system passes, especially set one, and kept the squad to a low 1.57 pass rating and forced the Varsity into only 6/23 perfect passes. Webb and Barlow led the team offensively with combined 6 kills out of 10 attempts (Barlow 2 and Webb 4). Thompson was very involved defensively and notched a team leading 6 digs out of the team total 15 and led the team with a 40% perfect pass rate on serve receive.
Lipschitz notched a team leading 7 assists in the scrimmage and was involved in 1 of the 2 Varsity blocks. Barlow and Noa combined for 16 of the team's 32 points (Barlow 9 and Noa 7) and Noa led the DS crew with a +6 net point production while Webb led the offensive players with a net +5.
Junior Varsity opened their last scrimmage of the week with a resounding and dominant 2-0 win versus the Wardlaw Rams using their service attack and consistent offense to power through each set comfortably. Varsity followed and took all 3 sets by 25-13, 25-13 and 25-17 scores. Thompson and Wauters were outstanding from the service line, hitting for 8 aces total -4 apiece- going for a combined 17/19 from the service line. Wauters led the squad with a 3.0 service rating. Thompson had nearly a 50% perfect pass rating, handled 12 of the team's 38 pass attempts and passed at a 2.25 pass rating. Rind however, passed at a whopping 2.5 rating putting up perfect passes on 4 of the 6 serves she received.
Offensively, the team had 30 kills on 66 swings and hit at a .303 efficiency! Barlow and Oberhuber were lethal with 7 kills apiece, Oberhuber with a kill % of 70% and an efficiency of .600 to lead the squad. Wauters was also very effective starting from the OH spot for the first time, notching 5 kills on only 9 swings with a .444 efficiency, 2nd on the team.
Thompson thwarted numerous Ram attacks digging up a team leading 11 balls out of the team's 24 total digs while Oberhuber, Webb and Wauters combined for 4 blocks (2-1-1 respectively) to round out the defensive Hilltopper efforts.
Zacharias led a very effective offensive output today with 24 assists. Wauters led Summit in scoring with 10 points, Oberhuber next with 9 and Barlow took 3rd spot with 7 points. Wauters and Oberhuber were the most efficient point scorers with a team leading net point prodiuction of +7 and +6 respectively.
Most of Varsity and JV will practice at VBRAGS on Saturday 28th and all levels will resume practice on Monday, opening day of school, and have a busy week with 3 home scrimmages against good teams (Lakeland Regional, Ridge and Cedar Grove) as the squad will tune up in preparation for the start of the season.
