On Monday, the Top took on ALJ looking for their 2nd win on the 2021 campaign. Summit did not disappoint their fans and came away with a 25-11, 25-18 win on Junior Varsity and a 25-21, 25-14 win on Varsity, although this victory came at a price. Starting OH Hannah Barlow was injured on a diving play early in set 1 and did not return to the match forcing some major line-up changes by the Hilltoppers for set 2 to account for 2 starters now out of the line-up.
What looked like an even match-up early on the JV match turned into a one-sided affair by the end of rotation 4 because Stella Yarden ripped a 10 point service run (4 aces) that blew the game open and gave the Summit squad a 15-5 lead they would never relinquish as the team rolled to a 25-11 set one win.
Set two looked like it was much of the same as the team got out to a 10-3 lead behind Abby Wells' 6 point service run (3 aces) but the Crusaders responded with a 4-0 run that had ALJ within 2 at 10-8. Ally Liguori took over from the service line with SHS up 12-9 and rattled off a 4-0 run (1 ace) that saw Summit increase its lead to 16-10 before it was over. Katie Cooper followed that up with a 2-0 run and within 6 rotations, the Maroon and White were up 19-13, a lead that ALJ just could not overcome. SHS closed it out on a 6-5 run for the 2-0 set win.
Varsity got out to a slow start, down 3-0 before the blink of an eye with 2 hitting errors. Hope Basaman and Sarah Noa got the Top back on track with a kill and and ace knotting the score up at 3. ALJ continued to fight off Summit runs through the first set but with Summit trailing 9-7, SHS got 2 kills by Vivian Roberts, an ace by Julia Nardino and a kill by Eva Oberhuber to force a Crusader time-out with the squad up 12-9. Off the time-out, Summit got another kill by Roberts and the Maroon and White were looking good with a 13-9 lead. Someone, however, forgot to tell the Crusaders that they were not in the match anymore and the Blue and White pounded 2 kills and got 2 receiving errors as a bonus to take over the lead by a 16-15 margin. This tight affair continued as the Hilltoppers could not get control of the set and saw ALJ up 20-19 after another Summit hitting error. A Crusader service ice error, however, opened up the door of opportunity for the Maroon and White and they took full advantage of it, forcing a ball handling error and getting another kill by Roberts that had the Summit faithful ecstatic as the scoreboard read 22-20 and a an ALJ time-out. Another kill by Roberts got SHS within one point of the set at 24-20 and a service error by the Blue and White sealed set 1 in favor of the Top, 25-20.
Basaman was instrumental in the set win with an 8/8 service run (2 aces), Noa was 6/7 on receive and put up 3 perfect passes while Roberts led the offense with a 5 kill tally and a .571 efficiency.
An early set 2 4-0 run sparked by a Basaman kill and 3 aces by Noa gave the Top an early 6-2 lead. All crawled back to within 1 at 6-5 but SHS got 6 of the next 8 points (Roberts 2 kills, Basaman 3 aces) to force a Crusader time-out at 12-7 Summit. The Maroon and White did not lose focus though and another ace-kill combo by Basaman and Roberts had the Hilltoppers up 14-7 and they never looked back, outscoring the Crusaders 11-7 the rest of the way for the set 2 and match victory at 25-14.
Noa and Basaman combined for 25/28 from the service line and a whopping 12 aces to lead the service attack. Roberts was nearly unstoppable with a 9 kill performance out of 11 swings for a .727 hitting efficiency. Oberhuber was very productive as well with 4 kills on 6 swings for a .500 efficiency. Noa led the squad defensively with 6 digs.
Next up were the always tough rivals, the Linden Tigers.
ps. Miss you Barlow... we will see you on the court in 4 weeks or so! We got your back!
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