The 9th Graders continue to show drastic improvement as the squad took on Union in a re-match at home. The Hilltoppers had been overwhelmed by the serving and offense of the Farmers at Union but in the return bout, the young 'Toppers pushed Union to 3 sets but fell just short of the upset win. The team rebounded nicely at New Prov despite a slow start on the road. The team pulled off a late needed run and took set 1 late and were able to keep that momentum going into the second set and get a more comfortable win! The final match of the stretch saw the home squad take on the Linden Tigers and the SHS side used effective serving and good serve receive to thwart the Linden opponents at every turn en route to a 2-0 win which sees this young squad post an 8W-2L record currently.
JV's unblemished record finally came to an end but the Hilltoppers started off this stretch of 4 matches with a victory versus Cranford on the road which gave the Hilltoppers an 8-0 record. The match was close throughout but the net play of De Yonge and Devaney as well as the overall serving efficiency of the entire team proved to be the difference later in the sets. Union at home was the next hurdle as the Farmers had pushed the Hilltoppers deep into each of the 2 sets on the road but this time it was the ace production of the servers - Allan, specifically - which set the table for a more comfortable 2-0 victory this time around. New Providence had lacked the defense late into the first meeting with the Hilltoppers at SHS to stop the consistent hitting and serving attack the Top employed but at home, the Pioneers bounced back from a late run by Summit that had them winning set 1 somewhat comfortably to take set 2 late and used another late run to push ahead by 5 in the deciding set 3 and defend a late rally by the Hilltoppers to take set 3 25-22 and hand the SHS squad its first loss of the season. Summit bounced back nicely though and established their serving attack against the Tigers of Linden midway through set 1 and really used it to separate themselves in set 2 early to gain their 10th victory of the year and improve to 10W-1L.
Varsity came off the loss to Rahway and faced off against the Cougars of Cranford on the road where SHS seems to struggle winning this year. Summit took control of the sets early and never looked back as the Top earned an advantage of 27-9 in kills and 12-3 in aces to outscore the Cougars 39-12 in a 25-16, 25-15 victory for the SHS squad. Zacharias led the team with 4 aces and a serve rating of 2.42 while also dishing out 23 assists. Henry and Barlow paced the serve receive with 4 perfect passes apiece for a combined 8/13 attempts. Barlow also tallied a team leading 10 kills while teammate Demm was unstoppable, tallying 4 kills on 7 attempts with a hitting efficiency of .571. The entire team hit for a season high .328 efficiency! Henry led the squad on defense with 6 digs.
The team returned home two days later to face off against the Union Farmers. Union had beaten the Top in Union in the 3rd match of the season and the Hilltoppers were looking to right that performance. And indeed they did! Summit beat the Farmers 25-23 and 25-19 although the match should not have been that close save for many unforced errors. SHS out-killed Union 28-7 but lost the block battle 2-3 and the ace battle 5-6. However, in total, the SHS squad out-scored the Farmers 35-16 which helped the team overcome their serving woes in this match. Henry and Barlow were the only servers rated at over 2.00 (2.35 and 2.22 respectively) and Henry led the way with 4 aces. Henry also had a team high 6 perfect passes on receive and pass rating of 2.38. Barlow and Henry also led the squad with 8 digs apiece on D while Barlow was the most effective and dangerous hitter for the Top with an eye-popping 15 kills on just 28 swings for a .357 efficiency and a 53.6 kill %. For context, the team had a .194 hitting efficiency and a total of 28 kills. Nardino tallied 2 blocks on defense to add to the effort and Zacharias added another 24 assists to her career numbers in the win.
Against New Providence on the road, the Hilltoppers were once again dominant on the offensive side of the ball with a 22 - 5 kill advantage over the Pioneers and a 12-7 ace advantage for a 34-12 point advantage. Summit took the match 25-13, 25-18 paced by Nardino and Welsh from the service line with 3 aces apiece and a team leading 2.45 and 2.67 serve rating, respectively. Henry had a 30% perfect pass success and was the passing leader with a 1.90 pass rating and was also the team leader with 10 digs. Barlow again led the way with 10 kills and a .250 efficiency rating and a 41.7 kill %. Of note, some of the support offense were impressive in limited attempts with Demm and Joseph combining for 5 kills on only 15 swings and ZERO errors for a combined .333 efficiency and 33.3 kill %. Zacharias had 18 assists but spread the wealth to 10 different players as the offense looks to feature Barlow but be especially effective with their other hitters.
And the last match of this run was a vital matchup with the Linden Tigers at home on Tuesday. The Hilltoppers won 2-0 by 27-25 and 25-19 tallies. SHS was out-killed 21-17 but out-blocked their opponents by a 3-0 margin and out-aced them 11-6 for a 31-27 advantage overall for the Top. Set 1 was the turning point in many ways for the Summit squad. With the Hilltoppers dominating the action and holding a 20-11 lead, Linden went on a 9-0 run (6 SHS hitting errors, 2 Linden aces, and 1 illegal contact by SHS) that turned the set on its head . Joseph stopped the run with a block but Linden got the ball right back on a kill. Joseph again stifled the Tiger offense with a block but a visitor kill had the score knotted up at 22 and the Tiger's best server up. An ace and a kill later and the Linden side had forced a Martins TO and had 2 set points in hand. However, a missed serve by the Tigers opened the door for Welsh to serve under the most stressful situations and the Soph came through with an ace to erase the 2 set points. Linden got another set point at 25-24 but this time Barlow put down a huge kill to tie the score again at 25. A difficult serve by Barlow followed and the Tigers had to give the 'Top an easy ball back which Nardino put away out of the middle and Barlow put an end to the set with an emphatic ace to close out set.
Summit opened up set 2 much the same way as it had in set 1 and held a 13-7 lead midway but after a serving error by Linden had extended the lead of the Hilltoppers to 14-9, Zacharias stepped up to serve and put the visitors under a ton of stress creating bad passing situations which forced the Tigers into free ball errors and gave the SHS crew free swings that led to a Welsh kill which had the Hilltoppers up 17-9. Linden called a TO and again made a run at the home side but another Welsh kill had SHS up 18-14 and the Tigers could not cut into that lead the rest of the way, getting as close as 19-16, 21-18 and 22-19 and 23-20 but the Top had an answer every time, closing out the game with a Barlow kill and a Nardino ace.
Nardino and Barlow shared the team lead in aces with 3 but Henry was dominant with a 2.80 serve rating on a 100% perfect serve %. Barlow was not far behind at 2.78 and Nardino also served at 100% with a 2.56 rating. Barlow also led the Top from the serve receive front with a 2.00 pass rating and 2 perfect passes. She added a team high 9 kills and a .261 efficiency. But the "killer" was Nardino who did not see the ball much on offense -just 5 attempts- but hit for a perfect 5/5 giving her a perfect kill and efficiency rating! Barlow completed her two way contributions with a team leading 7 digs while Welsh and Joseph had 3 and 2 blocks respectively to stymie the Linden offense at key times.
Next up will be the Dayton on the road and Kent Place at home on Spike Night!!!
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