The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
TAKING CONTROL
Tigers sweep Chargers in SBC match
HURON — In a matchup of the last two Sandusky Bay Conference champions, Huron took control early and never let it go in their 3-0 win over the Edison Chargers on Tuesday night.
The Tigers’ size and power overwhelmed Edison, who won the SBC in 2011 to end a 12-year run by Huron (8-1, 7-0), to win the match in three games, 25-15, 25-20, 2517.
“I thought we did a good job controlling (the match),” Huron coach Don Wood said. “Obviously, we had an advantage at the net, but Edison played some terrific defense. We had to have a bit of patience to really get any kind of lead on this team.”
The first game started off very tight as the teams traded leads five times within the first 20 points. Down 11-9, the Tigers erupted for one of their many long runs when they outscored the Chargers (3-5, 3-4) 16-4 to take Game 1 25-15, a stunning result for a game which had been very close in the early going.
“Our ball-handling was pretty good,” Wood said. “We’re able to set up the hitters really nicely and had some good matchups in the front row. We were able to take advantage of those matchups and get some easier points, which we didn’t get many of throughout the course of the match.”
The Tigers’ passing game worked to perfection through most of the night with senior Kat Ferrell going 24-for-25 in hitting attempts, finishing the match with 15 kills. Hadley Sterett was very effective as well, going 26 of 31 with 10 kills.
Edison did make Huron work for its points throughout the match with their defense, forcing several rallies as long as 30-40 seconds before either team took the point.
“Discipline and patience are the two biggest things,” Wood said. “You have to be able to handle the ball as well as them, and you’ve got to have the discipline to not do something silly when it’s not there.
“The patience is when you finally have the big swing, go ahead and take it.”
Edison’s defense was also fairly sharp at the net, where Micaela Ostheimer had a game-high five block kills.
“Our blockers work hard,” Edison coach Sean Hoover said. “They did a good job of getting to the right spots, trying to take some of their shots away. That really kept us in the game because we weren’t getting a lot of kills. Our serve receives weren’t great early. Blocks really kept us in it.”
Game 2 started off similar to the first game early on before the Tigers took an early 6-0 to claim a four-point lead. Edison kept things close before Huron closed the game out with four straight points capped by an ace from libero Sydney Bragg to win it 25-20.
Huron made sure to leave no doubt in the third game as they raced out to an 8-2 lead. Edison cut the lead to one but they could never tie the game and the Tigers pulled away to a 25-17 win to take the match.
“We swung better than we have lately, so I saw some improvements there,” Hoover said. “It’s kind of what were working on now is trying to get kills and end rallies.”
Huron exacted some revenge after the Chargers beat them twice on their way to a perfect conference record a year ago, but Wood insisted that his players were not motivated by last year’s results.
“When last year was over, it was over,” Wood said. “Edison did a fantastic job last year. They were definitely the class of the league. Our people knew that and they understood that. Edison earned everything they got.
“(It’s a) new year, and we’re worried about match-by-match and (we’ll) see where we’re at. Hopefully, we’re back on top. But it’s been a battle between the top four or five teams in the conference.”
Edison faces Port Clinton and Huron takes on Clyde to begin the second round of conference play on Thursday night.