Hudson Volleyball had two matches this past week. Last Tuesday, the team hosted Baldwin-Woodville for their senior/parent night. Hudson won the match 3-1, with scores of 24-26, 25-21, 25-15, and 25-20. This wasn’t the team’s sharpest match of the year, starting off with 9 service errors in the first set and finishing with 20 errors compared to 14 aces for the entire match. However, the team did not give up and they found ways to score points when they needed to in the last three sets.
Sara Hoffman led the team with 11 kills. Jenna Hallen and Shay Wassman each had 7, Noelle Kiltie, Maddie Matuke, Abbie Matuk, and Abby Richardson filled in the rest of the team’s 38 total kills for the match. Kaitlyn Zignego had 18 assists, Liz Collinson 10, and Carolyn McMahon, Belle Blakey, Ariana Zins, and Kiltie produced the rest of the 36 assists. Merrie Thao, Zins, Blakey, and Richardson all made it through the match with no service receptions errors. Wassman, Hallen, and Kiltie also combined for 8 block winners compared to Baldwin recording 1.
On Thursday evening, the team traveled to Eau Claire North. Eau Claire North has produced some very tough and really fun matches. Hudson persevered a first set loss to come back and win 3-1 with scores of 19-25, 25-22, 25-15, and 25-18. Hudson had a slow start to the first set, quickly falling behind by 7 points. Hudson did come back to tie the score at 10 and it was close the rest of the way. Eau Claire North really owned the net in the first set, blocking our hitters and using our blockers. Hudson made some great adjustments between sets one and two, adjusting our rotation and positioning of our blockers and we also started pounding our attack on the outside lines. As a result, the team became much more efficient at scoring points. The play at the net was definitely in Hudson’s favor for the last three sets. The Hudson defense adjusted well to where the Eau Claire hitters were placing the ball. This was the best Hudson has played so far this year.
Defensively, Ariana Zins led the team with 19 digs, Kaitlyn Zignego had 13, Sara Hoffman 12, and Abby Richardson had 8. Shay Wassman and Noelle Kiltie had 8 of the teams’ 11 block winners. On the offensive side, Hoffman again led the hitters with 14 kills. She was closely followed by Jenna Hallen with 13 kills and Jade Sharretts with 12. Sharretts turned in the best hitting efficiency of the year, scoring at a .474 pace. Zins led from the service line with 4 aces, with Richardson and Liz Collinson each adding 3. Our bench players were also inspiring, cheering loud enough to offset the large Eau Claire North student body.
