SV wins volleyball rematch
JACKSON TWP — When it came time for the Seneca Valley volleyball team to make a move in its match against North Allegheny Tuesday, the plan became simple.
Keep your eye on the ball, but more importantly, who's hitting it.
With the match tied at 1-1, the Raiders used bursts of 10-3 in Game 3 and 10-2 in Game 4 to come away with a 25-22, 17-25, 25-22, 25-17 victory over the Tigers.
"We just started to key on their two main hitters," said Seneca Valley coach Karen Martini. "As soon as we'd see who was going to hit the ball, we'd get a big block on them.
"That made the momentum go our way," she added.
In the third game, the Raiders (13-3, 9-2) were holding on to a 10-8 lead before scoring the next four points, including a pair of tip-overs from Catie Seman.
After a kill by the Tigers' Caitlin Bradshaw and a shot by the Raiders fall out of bounds to make it 14-10, Seneca Valley opened up a 21-12 lead.
The Tigers battled back to cut the deficit to three points three times and down to two at 24-20, but the Raiders secured the final point to take a 2-1 lead.
"Seneca Valley has a lot of offensive weapons," said North Allegheny coach Dan Schall. "And, if everyone's not playing defense, you're in trouble. If you have a team as good as Seneca Valley, they'll exploit that."
In the fourth set, the Raiders held an 11-9 advantage before reeling off four consecutive points, including consecutive kills by Meghan Drambel.
North Allegheny (12-3, 9-2) would pick up the next two points, but a 6-0 run allowed the Raiders to take a 21-11 lead en route to the victory.
The game was a reversal when compared to the team's first matchup on Sept. 23. The Raiders, two days after dropping their only other section match to Pine-Richland 3-2, lost to the host Tigers 3-1.
"When we played them before, we played bad ball," said Martini. "This time, the focus was on better ball handling. We had to stay where we needed to be.
"Against a team like (North Allegheny), you can't make mistakes," Martini added.
Despite trailing 15-13, the Raiders grabbed the next six points — the 15-all tie would be the ninth and final tie of the set — to take a 19-15 lead.
The Tigers closed the gap to 20-19 and with the game at 23-22 Raiders, Drambel's kill was followed by a NA shot hitting the net to give the Raiders the first game.
The Tigers evened the match in game 2 as they broke a 12-all tie with a 10-3 run of their own and pulled away with the eight-point win.
The Tigers, now tied with the Raiders at 9-2 in the section, were led by Leeanne Haus' 20 kills, Kassie Freyermuth's 14 kills and Bradshaw and Logan Meinert's 13 digs apiece.
The Raiders will wrap up the regular season with a match at Butler Thursday before a trip to the postseason. The WPIAL playoffs begin next Tuesday.
"This win builds some confidence," said Martini, whose team has just four seniors and four juniors, but 14 sophomores and five freshmen. "We were focused on the job (Tuesday) and did it well."
