Highland’s Kameron Stover goes up for a kill attempt against Pleasant on Thursday with teammate Reagan Maibach watching.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
After opening their season with a pair of non-conference wins over tough competition, the Highland volleyball opened the MOAC portion of their schedule in the same fashion.
Much like in their earlier wins over Big Walnut and St. Francis DeSales, the Scots topped Pleasant in four sets Thursday night. After winning the first two by scores of 25-17 and 25-15, they dropped the third by a 25-22 margin before outlasting the Spartans in the fourth by a 25-20 count.
Head coach Rob Terrill noted that his team goes through a gauntlet in the early weeks of their season, following that 3-0 start with contests against Jonathan Alder, Shelby and Marion Harding before competing against multiple teams at Westerville Central.
“That’s the reason why in the summer and in our scrimmage schedule, we play tough teams,” he said. “And this is really the test, the first three weeks of our season. They’re stepping up right now. We had two sets tonight go our way, the third one didn’t and we hung in there and gutted out the fourth one and I’d rather gut out the fourth one than a fifth one. I’m proud of them for sticking their noses in there and matching them.”
Fast starts boosted Highland in each of the first two sets. In the first, the team opened with three points by Larsen Terrill and followed with three by Kendal Kline and two from Kameron Stover in jumping out to an 11-4 lead. They would maintain a sizable advantage until near the end of the set, when four straight points by Kamryn Cocherl turned an 18-13 game into a one-point contest.
The Scots would rally, though, getting a defensive point and then six straight serves for scores by Stover to pull away for the eight-point victory.
The second set saw the team jump out to a 9-1 lead behind five points by Addison Mullins and two more from Kline. The team would add to that advantage, leading by as much as a 24-9 margin before winning 25-13.
However, they would not be able to maintain that level of play into the third set. With the score 5-4 in favor of the Spartans, they would get two points from Cocherl and three more from Alexis Hutchinson to open up an 11-5 lead. They would maintain a lead the rest of the way and hold off a late comeback bid by the Scots to force a fourth set.
While Terrill admitted that missed serves prevented his team from getting into a rhythm on offense, he wasn’t surprised that Pleasant bounced back after dropping the first two sets.
“Pleasant, to their credit, I knew it’d be a dogfight,” he said. “They’re not going to give us anything. I don’t care what the scores were in the first two sets, they’re going to turn around and fight us, which they did. That was to their credit to get the third and fight us all the way through in the fourth. I’m just proud of our girls.”
Throughout most of the fourth, neither team could gain much of an advantage, with the score either being tied or at a one-point margin until two points by Reagan Maibach gave Highland a 10-7 lead. The Scots would not relinquish that advantage, but the set was closely-contested until four more points by Maibach turned a 17-15 lead into a six-point edge late in the set.
The Spartans would use two points by Kamryn Roberts to get within a 22-19 score, but two defensive points and one off the serve of Mullins were able to lead the Scots to a 3-1 win in the big early-season conference match-up.
Terrill said that, after his veteran team’s first three contests of the fall, he’s pleased with how they’ve handled strong opposition.
“I think they’re able to push each other,” he said. “They’re able to figure things out. I try to give them that opportunity to own what’s on the court, so they’ve done a good job.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
