The Lady Hilltoppers had a clear size advantage up front but could the SHS serving attack and defense do enough to overcome an always defensive minded Pioneer squad?
Summit did have a 26-13 kill advantage but lost the serving battle by a 13-4 ace disadvantage to see Summit only tally a 27-26 total point advantage in a 25-23, 25-22 loss to the Green and White.
SHS started ominously enough 0-4 down and saw the Pioneers extend the lead to 10-3 before a strong response by the Maroon and Black. It began with Vivian Roberts hitting for 2 kills and Hope Basaman notched another ace to cut the lead to 4. Roberts notched another kill and the Hilltoppers were within striking distance at 10-7. But the Pioneers responded with a 5-1 run and yet again the Maroon and Black were down by a bunch at 15-8.
A serving error by the Pioneers opened the door for the Summit crew and Sarah Noa hit an ace to pressure the Green and White and senior MB Eva Oberhuber added 2 kills on a run that had SHS back again within 2 at 16-14. New Providence extended the lead to 18-14 off 2 Summit errors (a theme of the set) but the Hilltoppers leaned on their offense to get back into the set with key kills by Basaman and Alison Wauters to crawl within one at 18-17. But the errors came again and a hitting error, 2 serving errors and an ace later, Summit was down again 22-19. The silver lining this year has been the no quit attitude in this team since game one versus Governor Livingston and in this set, despite all the errors, the team had managed to score enough to be close and so they relied yet again on that positive to get back into the set with 2 Roberts kills and an ace by the comeback kid, Julia Nardino tying the score at 22. Yet again New Prov responded and earned 2 set points but the Top got another kill by Roberts to force a TO at 24-23 but unfortunately that is as close as the team would get as they fall in set 1, 25-23.
The numbers in set one almost made no sense, a 16-11 SHS advantage in points despite a 7-3 ace lead by the Pioneers because of an overwhelming 13-4 kill advantage by the Hilltoppers. Yet, because of 8 unforced hitting and return errors, the Top lost a close set 1 result.
Set 2 saw the Hilltopper serve receive fall apart as the Pioneers continued to rely on their serving attack to mitigate the Summit front row offensive advantage. Summit got going early behind two Roberts' kills to take a 5-2 lead. But the reception game went south quick in set 2 and the Pioneers not only eliminated the lead but overtook the Top by a 7-5 lead off some tough serving and easy offense. Yet again Roberts and Oberhuber combined on kills to give the SHS crew an 8-7 lead but slowly the New Providence Varsity kept chipping away and eventually got their lead back up to 2 at 12-10. Basaman and Oberhuber got their offense going and got Summit knotted at 13-13 midway through a tight set.
The SHS errors came again as they had all match after Hilltoppers runs and this time 3 hitting errors and 2 aces allowed saw the Top down 18-15. And then, the wheels came off. Three consecutive aces by the Pioneers looked to be the beginning of the end for the Top but the Summit Varsity started to keep balls alive and it was the New Prov hitters who forced shots that led to errors which had the SHS team within 3 at 22-19. A Summit hitting error pushed the Green and White one step closer to the win at 23-19 but Roberts tallied another kill and the Hilltopper serving attack finally forced the Pioneers into some errors and the Maroon and Black had life down only 23-22. But a serving error and an ace allowed later, the drama was over and the Hilltoppers were looking at the wrong end of a 25-23, 25-22 score-line.
Noa was the most dangerous server for the Top with a 2.43 serve rating and 2 aces while she was also the top receiver with a 1.90 pass rating. Thompson tallied 12 digs to lead defensively and Roberts hit for 12 kills for a kill % of 50% and a .417 efficiency making her nearly unstoppable. Zoe Zacharias distributed 22 assists finding 4 other hitters for 10 kills while targeting Roberts for 12.
Varsity drops to 4W-3L.
No comments:
Post a Comment