Highland powers past Brookhaven

By ROB HAMILTON

It didn’t take long for the High­land vol­ley­ball team to make an impres­sion on Brookhaven in their Divi­sion II sec­tional opener Tues­day evening.

The host Scots com­pletely dom­i­nated the first game of the match in win­ning by a 25–2 score and then went on to take the final two games by iden­ti­cal 25–13 mar­gins to advance to the sec­ond round of the tournament.

Both of Brookhaven’s points in that first game came from pre­vent­ing the Scots from scor­ing on serves. How­ever, Heather Thacker man­aged three points dur­ing her turn behind the line and team­mate Lexi Winkelfoos later moved the score from 6–2 to 25–2 by serv­ing for 19 straight points.

“We had pretty good focus to start with,” said head coach Rob Ter­rill. “They were kind of unortho­dox. We play entirely dif­fer­ent styles of league.”

The Scots also got off to a quick start in the sec­ond game, as Kam Terry and Mar­lese Fer­gu­son helped them jump out to a quick 11–1 advan­tage that they improved to a 16–4 mar­gin after three quick points from Abby Garcia.

How­ever, the Bearcats bat­tled back to get as close as 17–10 before High­land was able to out­last them down the stretch to close within one game of advancing.

“In the sec­ond game, we weren’t pass­ing as well and they got some kills,” said Terrill.

Thacker got the Scots off to a fast start in the third game, as she rolled off six points to help her team to a 7–1 lead. While Brookhaven was able to stay within six or seven points for much of the game, they were unable to pro­vide a seri­ous threat to the home team.

With the score 20–13 late in the con­test, Terry fin­ished the game and match by serv­ing for five straight points.

For Ter­rill, this match was much like his team’s sea­son. In the sec­ond game, one of his starters, Car­ley Gahm, was banged up while div­ing out of bounds in an attempt to return the ball. How­ever, the team didn’t miss a beat, as fresh­man Bro­gin Den­man stepped in to fill her spot for the rest of the match.

“We’ve been miss­ing at least one starter all year,” he said. “We lost five seniors last year and then all-league player Heather Thacker was out most of the sea­son and even with that, we’ve been able to fight in the league all year. Peo­ple have played in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions and we’re young at spots, but the girls have stepped up and that is good.”

In the con­test, Terry fin­ished with 18 kills and six aces; Thacker had four kills and Addie Franklin fin­ished with three kills. Winkelfoos tal­lied nine aces, while Megan Oder had five and Fer­gu­son fin­ished with four.

High­land wouldn’t be able to get past top-seeded DeSales in their sec­tional final game on Thurs­day. The host team won 25–20, 25–21, 25–9 to end the Scot sea­son with a 13–11 record (8–5 in league play).

Terry tal­lied 12 kills and 11 digs, while Thacker added nine kills and Macy Winkelfoos fin­ished with nine digs.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Oct 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.