TEA The Huron Tiger volleyball team showed a lot of grit and rode a serving wave in the final set, earning a 25-18, 25-24, 25-13 sweep of the Tea Area Titans in an Eastern South Dakota match that was the season opener for both squads.
I am really pleased with the way that we came into a tough environment, overcame some adversity, showed up and played hard tonight, said Huron coach Josh Lien after the season opening win. We did some things really well tonight, we figured it out and we learned that we have things we can work on for certain.
The Tigers opened up quickly, taking an early 6-1 lead in the opening set, on a pair of kills from Addy Knight and one from Aly Davis. Huron maintained its three-to-five point cushion throughout much of the set, with the lead swelling to five points on several occasions. A Hylton Heinz ace pushed Hurons lead to 20-14 and Tea Area never got closer, as Davis clocked two kills down the stretch as Huron took the 25-18 win.
The Titans regrouped during the break between sets, holding early leads of two points until a mini-run keyed by kills from Chloe Christensen and Anaya Connors pushed the lead to four points, at 9-5. Tea Area maintained that margin as the teams traded points until a kill from Samantha Mangmoradeth got Huron within two, at 11-9.
From that point, Tea Area caught fire, as Anna Binde caught the line on a kill, setter Claire Hank stroked an ace and Remington Bechard found the floor in the heart of the Tiger defense and suddenly it was 15-9 for the Titans and Lien used his second timeout of the set.
His Tigers responded out of the timeout, giving up a quick point on an error, but scoring the next four as four different Huron players notched kills, prompting a timeout from Tea Area coach Rachel Lord, with the Titan lead down to three points, at 16-13. Tea Area maintained the lead, until a Davis ace cut the Titan lead to a single point, at 20-19.
A couple of Tiger errors, a Bechard kill and an ace from Connors put Tea Area at the brink of the set win, 24-20.
We were out of timeouts, right? Lien said after the match, so we did some substituting to change the momentum.
An error by the Titans slowed their charge and a kill from Dreyer cut the lead to one point, 24-23. Another Tea Area error knotted the score, before kills from Knight and Dreyer – her fourth in the set – closed the books on the 26-24 win for Huron.
A notably deflated Tea Area Titan team reported for the third set and keep the game close through the early going, but the Huron servers caught the wave, when they led 7-6. Davis chalked up back-to-back aces, Chloe Carr pounded a kill through the Titan defense sending Heinz to the service line.
The junior libero connected on four ace serves in the rotation and that action, combined with some Tea Area errors staked Huron to a 10-point cushion, at 18-8, after Knight knocked a kill into the corner of the court.
With a solid lead, the Tigers wasted no time in closing the deal, as Davis and setter Jencie Goergen notched kills down the stretch to earn the match win.
I think that the end of the second set really knocked them for a loop, Lien said of the Titans. I liked how we faced some tough situations and were able to serve well. We talk about winning the service game by being aggressive but not reckless, and I think we did that well tonight.
Huron got a balanced scoring effort, led by Knight, the James Valley Christian transfer, who had eight kills. Davis had seven kills and three aces. Dreyer and Mangmoradeth each had six kills, Carr had four and Heinz had a total of five aces in the match.
Connors had nine kills and Binde added eight to pace the Titans.
Huron is back in action on Saturday, when the Tigers host the Huron Invitational at Huron Arena and the Huron Middle School.
Huron opens against Sturgis at 9 a.m., then faces Northwestern, Brookings and Sioux Falls Lincoln as well in the round-robin format. All of Hurons games are scheduled at Huron Arena on Saturday.
Lower level scores found Tea Area taking a 2-1 win in the JV match with scores of 25-21, 21-25, 15-7 and the Titans also took the Freshman match 25-21 and 25-16.
Hurons Sophomores got a measure of revenge, earning a 2-0 (25-19, 25-20) win.
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