Girls volleyball: Seneca overcomes first-game jitters, Hall for victory

SENECA — Playing without face protection for the first time since the 2019 campaign certainly was a breath of fresh air for both the Seneca and Hall volleyball teams. But the return to normalcy couldn’t mask the first-game jitters for both clubs, which combined for a whopping 50 attack errors.

But the Fighting Irish overcame 26 miscues with some strong net play from senior middle hitter Sophie Cato, who registered a contest-best eight kills as Seneca won its 2022 season opener 25-19, 25-18 over the visiting Red Devils on Monday evening.

“It wasn’t very pretty with all the serving and hitting errors,” Cato said. “But in the end we got the job done, got the win, so I guess we’ll take it in our first match of the season.”

Cato got some help from senior setter Neely Hougas, who popped up 17 assists along with 10 serving points and two kills. Senior Cassia Buchanan also contributed with five points and four aces, while classmate Leslie Klicker added five points, two aces and three kills.

For Hall, which committed 24 attack errors during its first contest of the new campaign, sophomore Kennedy Wozniak led the way with two kills and a pair of blocks. Senior Clara Jablonski produced three service winners and two aces. Junior Taylor Coutts added seven digs and three assists, while junior libero CeCe Verruchi popped up 10 digs.

“Obviously in our first game of the year we struggled with some errors, but I told the girls to keep their heads up and we’ll correct the mistakes and be just fine,” first-year Hall coach Carolyn Bryant said. “I was happy with the effort and all the hustle we showed. I believe this is an excellent group of girls that will really improve as the season goes on.”

Hall jumped put to an early 8-4 lead in game one courtesy of six Seneca attack errors and two aces from Jablonski. But Cato and Hougas went to work to even the score at 8-8 after Hougas deftly set Cato with four consecutive assists that resulted in a quad of kills in succession.

“I wanted to get us going after a slow start, and we began to gain some momentum after that,” Cato said.

Even though the Irish attack errors kept coming, they managed to slowly increase the lead to 23-18 before Klicker put away set point with an ace.

“I think it’s one of those type of first game nervousnesses that we saw tonight,” SHS coach Noah Champene said. “We regrouped early and were able to grab the opening set even though we didn’t play nearly the way we needed to in order to win it.

“Still, we got the job done and carried it into the second set.”

There, Buchanan reeled off four consecutive aces to give the Irish a 5-2 lead.

“That was very helpful in getting us going toward closing out the match,” Champene said. “That was a nice run and kind of set the tone for us the rest of the way.”

Seneca increased its lead to 19-13 before Klicker blasted home two left-side winners, and Cato added her last kill from the middle to give the Irish a 22-13 advantage.

Hall rallied to cut the gap to 24-18 before sophomore Audrey McNabb put away match point on an overpass.

“Tonight was first-game jitters, and I know we’ll get back into it just fine,” Champene said. “Proud of the win and hope to clean things up versus Peotone on Wednesday.”