Brooke Cooney scores a kill during a 3-0 sweep of Hall on opening day. (Photo by John Goralski)
By BRIAN JENNINGS
STAFF WRITER
After seeing his girls in regular season action for the first time this fall against a youthful and inexperienced team, Southington coach Rich Heitz said that there’s still areas of the court they have to clean up. But overall, the Lady Knight volleyball team didn’t let up as they cruised to a comfortable 3-0 victory (25-14, 25-4, 25-13) over Hall (0-1) at home their season opener on Friday.
“They had a lot of unforced errors,” said Heitz. “They missed a lot of serves, which generated a lot of points. But when you look at the kill distribution on our side of the net, you have five people with four more kills. So, it was kind of distributed well.”
Hannah Zelina went 21-for-23 serving with four aces. Brooke Cooney paced the offense with six kills, and Nolyn Allen anchored the defense with 10 digs. Stephanie Zera contributed with 23 assists.
Friday’s contest was not only the first regular season match for the Knights, but it was also an opportunity to try out new formations, strategies, and plays. The Knights lacked overall size coming into the season, and Heitz said that going forward, the team will primarily focus on preparing for larger opponents.
“Sarah Myrick had a beautiful swing block in set two that we’ve been working on with the kids,” said Heitz. “It was done perfectly. We’re trying to get a little more height on our blocking. So, we’re doing a couple things different than what we’ve traditionally done.”
The Knights will be back on the hardwood next week with matches at divisional Conard (1-0) on Monday, Sept. 11 and Bristol Eastern (1-0) on Wednesday, Sept. 13.
For this week’s box scores, click here: (southingtonobserver.com/2017/09/12/weekly-scoreboard-for-the-sept-15-edition). To contact sports writer Brian Jennings, email him at BJennings@SouthingtonObserver.com.