By Bryanna Winner
For The Signal
Hart volleyball hosted Valencia on Thursday and the Indians won in four games: 25-29, 24-26, 25-10, 25-11.
For Hart, senior Ruby Duncan had eight blocks and led both teams in kills with 20 and senior Megan Soto was close behind with 11 kills. Senior Grace Eck led with 26 assists, while senior Angelina Elsee led with 23 digs. Junior Sabrina Sveiven was right behind with 22 digs.
For Valencia, senior Alyssa Grodell led the Vikings with 12 kills, senior Kaelyn White had three aces, senior Jaela Bernard had seven blocks while senior Macy Kirkwood and junior Brooke Sanders were behind her with four blocks.
Both teams fought extremely hard but Hart was able to take the win based on game mentality and ball control, according to Soto.
“I think that we just decided to make a switch and control the game because once we have the mentality that we can do it and we’re in control, then we are golden,” she said. “Once we have those little bits of momentum and we keep rolling with it, then we do great and we’re able to take care of the ball.”
Soto also attributed their win to their communication and ability to find the open holes.
“I think that we were able to find the open court and knowing what shot was open,” she said. “We were calling out everything, we were playing everything up on defense, especially in that last set.”
Grodell thought that the Vikings played well until they lost their momentum and energy about halfway through. Hart went on a 5-0 run twice during the third game.
“The energy throughout the game for us was going up until halfway through Game 3, about, and then it started going back down and that’s when we started going in ruts,” Grodell said. “We couldn’t really recover but we are working on that a lot in practice.”
Both teams have different parts of their game that they will work to improve on as they prepare for next week.
“Taking care of the ball on our side of the net. We could’ve executed on our side more efficiently and I think we could’ve given them more of a run for their money,” said Valencia coach Kristin Dolan.
“We need to work on adjusting our defense. We got riled up a little bit with their tipping and their roll shots, we couldn’t dig that up initially and then it took us a little bit to get going,” said Hart coach Mary Irilian. “We will be working on adjusting on different types of hitters, looking for tendencies and be a little bit more consistent on that end.”
Both the Vikings and Indians will play on Tuesday. The Vikings host West Ranch at 5:30 p.m. while the Indians host Canyon at a time that is to be determined.
West Ranch 3, Golden Valley 0
West Ranch swept the Golden Valley 25-18, 25-17, 25-14 at home.
Both will have their next match on Tuesday, with the Wildcats traveling to the Valencia Vikings at 5:30 p.m. while the Grizzlies will host the Saugus Centurions at 5:30 p.m.
Saugus 3, Canyon 0
Saugus defeated Canyon 25-14, 25-22, 25-20 at home.
Both teams will play on Tuesday with the Cowboys traveling to the Hart Indians for a 5:30 match, while the Centurions will travel to Golden Valley High to take on the Grizzlies at 5:30 p.m.
