Hall makes quick work of Putnam County
GRANVILLE – Hall looked as if they were in mid-season form, while Putnam County struggled in the Lady Red Devils’ 25-12, 25-22 victory Tuesday night in Granville.
Right out of the gate, Hall was dominant with their service game, as Johnna Schultz served up an ace. It was the first of 14 aces on the night for the Lady Red Devils.
Claire Tostovarsnik added to the ace parade with four consecutive aces to push the Lady Red Devils lead to 9-2.
“It was either aces or errors tonight with the service game,” Hall coach Dani Zellmer said. “We’re going to have to work on the error part a bit in practice. I told the girls to serve strong, and that’s exactly what they did with Johnna.”
Brigitte Klein extended the lead with back-to-back kills, and Tostovarsnik added another to push the lead to 15-5.
“Tostovarsnik was big tonight,” Zellmer said. “That’s how we expect her to play out there. Schultz also did a nice job setting things up for us.”
On the other end of the court, Lady Panthers coach Debbie Shevokas was disappointed with the team she watched fall to Hall.
“I was a little disappointed with how we played out there tonight,” Shevokas said. “That’s not the team that I’ve seen practicing the last three and a half weeks or so. We couldn’t get our passes up to our setters, and setters couldn’t get anything to our hitters. On top of that we had six service errors which kept us from winning that second game, so we got some things to work on in practice.”
With Hall clicking on all cylinders and Putnam County struggling, the Red Devils cruised to a 25-12 Game 1 victory.
Game 2 looked as if it were going to be a carbon copy of the first, as the Lady Red Devils raced out to a 7-1 lead behind two more aces from Schultz and a big kill from Kelle Nett.
The Lady Panthers had other ideas though. Alyssa Watson picked up a pair of kills, and then Hall committed a pair of service errors to help close the Hall lead to 10-9.
Back-to-back aces from Klein helped the Lady Red Devils push the lead to 13-9. From there, both teams traded more service errors, but it was two big aces from Christine Mattern that tied the game at 22.
Hall called a timeout at this point to regroup and try to close the match out in two games. A service error and two errant hits from Putnam County allowed the Lady Red Devils to end game two with a 25-22 victory.
“I told them in the timeout to get their heads back in the game,” Zellmer said. “I wasn’t worried, though. I knew they would respond, and they did.”
Schultz led Hall with 15 assists while Klein had six digs and three kills. Tostovarsnik added eight points and three kills. Jaclyn Kain and Nett led with four kills. Watson led Putnam County with three kills, while Ally Miller led with five blocks.
