Girls Volleyball: LHS Digs for a Cure ... and a Win

The Livingston girls volleyball team hadn’t faced much adversity yet this season. But after a rare dropped set last night, the Lancers showed just why they are considered one of the state’s premier teams.

Livingston’s deep collection proved too much to handle as they rallied to defeat Union Catholic 25-22, 22-25, 25-14 Thursday night in a showdown of unbeatens.

“We knew we could do it,” senior Nancy Yang said. “We just had play hard like we did in the first game.”

Yang was at the forefront of the Livingston (6-0) resurgence, recording a pair of kills in a 6-1 run to open the third and put the Lancers in control of the match. Yang would notch three more kills during a 7-2 run which made it 22-11 and essentially put the match out of reach.

“They just had to clean up the way they were playing and play with a lot of energy (in the third),” head coach Al Partelow said. “We had to sure up our defense because we were playing a little tentatively in the second game. They panicked a little bit and we told them they had to relax, play hard and keep it simple.”

For the Lancers, ranked second in the state, keeping it simple meant relying on its seemingly endless collection of hitters. Yang led the way with a match-high 22 kills and 12 digs, but was hardly alone as teammate Elizabeth Zimmerman added 12 kills and 14 digs in the victory.

“They didn’t have anyone to block Nancy or Liz,” Partelow said. “We were trying to keep their middle focused on our middle which we did a good job at. We had some good kills in the middle position. Our strength is that we can go across the net, antenna to antenna, with hitters. A lot of teams have to go to one person.”

“It was such a team effort,” Yang said. “Everyone played so well. I didn’t feel like I had to take it into my own hands.”

Jamie Schneck and Alyssa Vorbeck chipped in with five kills apiece. Rachel Kung and Allison Edelstein added 23 and 22 assists respectively. Schneck had 14 digs and Alyssa Cherney had 10.

The win over Union Catholic (7-1), ranked 10th in the state, is the latest big performance for a Livingston team which won the Eastern and Northern Valley tournaments this season.

“We kind of feel like we got a target on our backs, but we just play as hard as we can,” Yang said. “We don’t think about whatever our rankings are.”

“This team is just so together,” said Partelow, acknowledging this might be the strongest and deepest team he’s had at Livingston. “They just all support each other. Fifteen players that give 110-percent all the time.”

Julie Monroy led Union Catholic in defeat with 13 kills and 10 digs. Annyssa Herlihy added 12 kills and 12 digs and Kim Esguerra chipped in with nine kills.

NOTES
Proceeds from the match were donated to breast cancer research and awareness.

“It’s a nice event,” Partelow said. “We tried to put on a nice fund-raiser (organized by the Livingston Volleyball Association) for breast cancer. I guess that charged the girls up too. They were very excited.”

“They really came up with it and made a great event,” said Yang. “It was fabulous. For the first one ever, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”