North Star Outlasts Southwest in Five Sets on Opening Night
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WARM-UP MUSIC REVIEW: Really heavy on Miley Cirus/Hannah Montana along with High School Musical and Jonas Brothers sprinkled in. Definitely an interesting choice of music as the only thing that seemed to be missing was a little Chetah Girls. North Star gets points for the playlist being unique, but it lacked variety and it’s hard getting pumped up for a match listening to Troy and Gabrielle sing to each other. Thumb rating out of 5:
LINCOLN – Entering Thursday night’s match against Lincoln Southwest, the Gators of Lincoln North Star had just one win against the Silverhawks in the school’s history.
It took full five sets, but the #4 Gators got win number two over 17th-ranked Southwest in the season-opener for both schools.
Early on, it looked like North Star may cruise to a victory as the Gators jumped out to a 9-0 lead in the first set behind a couple ace serves from senior setter Kailee Brown and a pair of kills from Katie Hitz.
From that point on, however, the two teams slugged it out in a very evenly played match. The Gators took the first set 25-15 and had a chance to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the second set when another Hitz kill tied the score at 23-23. The two teams went back-and-forth late in the set until Southwest’s Maddie Hickson’s ace serve gave the Silverhawks a 27-25 victory in set two.
North Star would control and win the third set, but Southwest controlled the fourth set thanks to a 7-0 run midway through to force a decisive fifth set.
In the fifth set, Southwest took an early 4-2 lead, but North Star tied it at 4-4 on an ace serve from sophomore Haley Seip. After Southwest’s Wichita State recruit Allie Davis and North Star’s Nebraska recruit Sarah Allick exchanged kills, another Davis kill and a dump kill by Silverhawk setter Madison Egger put Southwest up 7-6.
A pair of unforced errors by Southwest followed by kills from Ashley Kistaitis and Hitz put North Star up 10-7. Two unforced errors from North Star got Southwest back to within 10-9, but the Gators took advantage of three more Southwest errors to go on a 4-0 run and take a 14-9.
Another kill from Kistaitis won the fifth set 15-11 for North Star and gave the Gators the 3-2 victory.
#4 Lincoln North Star def. #17 Lincoln Southwest 25-15, 25-27, 25-19, 20-25, 15-11.
Lincoln Southwest (kills-blocks-ace serves)
Callie Meyer 4-4-0; Maddie Hickson 0-0-1; Brenna Hansen 8-0-0; Madison Egger 2-1-0; Lauren Cope 0-1-0; Allie Davis 25-0-1; Maddie Kelle 4-3-0; Taylor Els 0-0-2.
Lincoln North Star (kills-blocks-ace serves)
Jenna Tederman 8-0-1; Sarah Allick 13-2-1; Ashley Kistaitis 15-1-2; Kailee Brown 0-0-2; Katie Hitz 11-2-1; Courtney Faller 1-1-0; Haley Seip 2-2-0.
Assists: Lincoln Southwest 40 (Egger 27, Sydney Anderson 3, Els 1). Lincoln North Star 44 (Brown 40, Sara Abbott 3, Hitz 1). Digs: Lincoln Southwest – Els 17. Lincoln North Star – Brown 19.