Highland’s Kameron Stover goes up for a kill attempt in her team’s 3-0 win over London in Thursday’s district semifinal contest.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
Highland broke open a back-and-forth first set in their Division II volleyball district semifinal contest against London on Thursday to pick up a 25-20 decision and never looked back in advancing to the program’s 10th district final in an 11-year stretch.
Playing at Westerville Central High School, the Scots then cruised to a 25-15 win in the second set before fighting off the Red Raiders to win the third and final set by a 25-19 count.
Head coach Rob Terrill noted that after a week off following a pair of easy sectional wins, his team was able to get back into a rhythm late in that first set — a necessity considering they were playing a quality opponent.
“I told them after that second timeout that London took that let’s settle down down now,” he said. “We’re back into a routine, we’re back into a rhythm. Let’s just play consistent from here and we kind of took it over. Hats off to the girls. I thought they played really well and I thought they responded well. London’s a good team. They’re 21-3 — the same record as us — so you’ve got to play.”
The outcome of the first set was in doubt most of the way, with the teams regularly trading the lead. Trailing 17-15, the Scots got a big boost from junior Kameron Stover. After a defensive point brought Highland within one point, she would score four straight on her serve to give them a three-point lead.
Highland would then hold London without points on their final three service attempts of the set. Meanwhile MaKaylee Merckling would score twice to give the Scots a five-point lead, which they would hold throughout the set in taking a 1-0 lead.
Terrill noted that his team did a good job of putting pressure on London’s back row after they hit their stride.
“We felt we just had to put a lot of pressure on their passers,” he said. “I felt like we did that. Their Libero was really good in the first set defensively, so I thought we challenged her serve receive and from that point on, that really helped us. It took her out of the game and affected the others.”
The Scots put points on the board in bunches in the second set. The score was tied at 4-4 in the early going, but Highland was able to quickly pull away from London. Two points each from Stover and Merckling followed by one from Addison Mullins made it an 11-6 game. Larsen Terrill followed with two points and Savanna Sanborn added three to boost the advantage to an 18-8 score.
While London was able to get a pair of brief runs by Addison Thomas and Riley Cremeans, Highland was able to maintain a commanding lead in winning 25-15 to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
Rob Terrill noted that his team did a good job of not letting the Red Raiders go on extended runs in the match.
“Hitting-wise, I thought we just tried to be consistent,” he said. “We had some error runs in there, but we had enough good runs to knock that out. I thought we controlled that part pretty well. We didn’t give them a lot of runs and when we did, we tried to minimize it.”
Highland jumped out to a 10-6 lead in the third set behind five straight points by Camryn Miller, but London was able to battle back to tie things up at 12. However, with Highland leading 14-13, they were able to get three straight from Terrill and three more from Sanborn to jump in front 21-15. Three straight points by London cut that lead in half, but the Scots responded with a defensive score and two points by Miller to lead 24-18 in a set they would win by six to advance to a Saturday contest at Westerville Central against Buckeye Valley.
Rob Terrill noted that his team did a good job of pressuring London’s back row, which put them on the right track to continue advancing in the tournament.
“I felt like we were putting good pressure on their back row,” he said. “If we get around the block, I felt that could change the game for us and I think that’s what happened at that point. We just started getting around the block a little bit and making their back row play. They started letting a couple balls drop when they were in and that kind of deflated them and we just took it from there.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
