Wednesday, September 13, 2023

BOUNCE BACK PERFORMANCES FOR 9th AND VARSITY; JV ROLLS TO 4th STRAIGHT

 


The 9th Graders traveled to neighboring New Providence yesterday looking to bounce back from their first loss of the season and change their slow starts to matches.  Such was not the case.  The team was down 6-0 in rotation 1 but,  as has been the case most matches,  the team fought back and started to get more comfortable with each passing point.  It started with Feuerstake from the service line who answered the 6-0 Pioneer run with an 8-0 run herself and SHS was out of rotation 1 with an 8-7 lead.  After the next rotation yielded nothing to either team,  and on the back end of rotation 3,  Colon went on a 6-0 run that pushed the Summit lead to a comfortable 16-8 lead.  The Pioneers could not generate any run over the next 3 rotations while the Hilltoppers were able to outscore the New Providence squad by a 7-3 tally.  Set one was over by rotation 7 as the Top took it by a 25-12 score.

Set 2 was a tighter affair early as neither team was able to get a huge advantage on their serve through the first 3 rotations but the Pioneers held a 9-7 lead at the conclusion of this rotation.  But then Freeden came up in rotation 4 and ran off a 5-0 service run that not even a TO by New Prov was able to slow down.  SHS had flipped the script and led 13-11 at the end of rotation 4.  Neither team was able to gain any advantage over the next two rotations but with the score 16-13 SHS,  Feuerstake again ripped off another 3 service points to push the Summit lead to 19-14.  After snapping the Pioneer service game in the next ball,  Meiseles struck for 2 more points and pushed the lead to 22-14 which all but sealed the deal and after Easton finished off her service game,  the match was over.  Summit wins 25-12,  25-17 to improve to 3W-1L.


JV was looking to keep the good times rolling in 2023 with their 4th win in a row and they did not disappoint with a solid 2-0 win over the Pioneers of New Providence by a 25-15, 25-18 tally.  New Prov opened up the match with a 5-0 run which had the Hilltoppers uncomfortable early but the team broke serve and Allan ran a run of her own to flip the score to 6-5.  The teams deadlocked in the next rotation but behind Meltzer's serve in rotation 3,  the team exploded on a 6-0 run that had the team up 13-7.  The Pionerrs cut the lead to 13-10 but Chaves sealed the fate of the visitors with a 7-0 run that had SHS up by an insurmountable 20-10 tally.  One rotation later, it was over with a 25-15 score on the scoreboard.  

Set 2 had the teams battling it out to a near draw through the first few rotations but then again Chaves ran off 7 points to give SHS an 8-2 lead but the Pioneers fought back to an 8-6 deficit.  Summit held a 12-9 lead at the end of rotation 5 but the turning point came in rotation 6 when Armstrong led a 6-0 service point run that had the Top up 19-9 and the crowd sensed the end was near.  New Prov again chipped at the lead by generating a 3-0 run of their own but by rotation 8 the Pioneers had only managed to get within 5 at 21-16 which was as close as the team got to Summit as the Hilltoppers closed it out 25-18.  Summit continues its perfect start to the season with a 4W-0L Record.


Varsity was coming off a very "un-Hilltopper like" performance at Union and was looking to get their footing back and establish some rhythm with Barlow back for her 2nd match of the season.  Coach Martins made a couple of line-up adjustments based off the Union matchup and the team hoped to show a better cohesive effort in this new look formation.  

Zacharias kicked things off with a 5-0 run (2 aces, Nardino and Welsh kill) and then Barlow got her first kill of the match after a Pioneer service break to give the ball back to SHS and get Thompson to the service lineThe Senior DS ripped 4 aces out of the next 5 serves (Nardino block) and had a 7 point service run that ended on a free ball receive error but the damage had been done.  Summit found itself up 14-2 in a mere 2 rotations.  New Providence crawled back to 15-4 but Joseph ended the mini run with a kill and Welsh ripped off 3 consecutive aces along with a couple of kills by Nowicka and Joseph which sealed the deal at 25-4 for the set 1 victory.  

Summit broke serve right away in set 2 and 3 kills by a combined effort of Barlow and Nardino, had the home team up by a 4-0 margin.  The visitors fought back to knot the score at 4 (Summit serving error and 2 hitting errors) and continued that trend of SHS running a 3-4 point lead just to see it go away.  Things finally changed at 11-10.  Summit broke serve and Thompson again put the pressure on,  giving the home team an easy defensive transition which Barlow put away.  Thompson again ripped off 2 more aces and SHS was looking at a 16-11 lead.  The visitors fought back to within 2 but a Devaney kill sparked a 6-1 run (3 aces Zacharias) which had the squad up 21-14.  Nardino put away an attack out of the middle and Feuerstake got a kill down to the one zone in the next two rotations to earn a 25-16 set and match win.

Summit ripped 16 aces led by Thompson's 6 and Barlow passed safely in all her attempts with a team leading 2.10 rating and also notched a team leading 7 kills.  Thompson and Zacharias notched 4 digs each on defense and Zacharias led the offense with 17 assists,  edging closer to 1000 for her career.  

With the win,  Summit jumped back up to 2nd in the division,  one game back of Dayton and tied with Rahway.  

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