Junior high volleyball splits with DuBois in opener
PUNXSUTAWNEY — The Punxsy junior high volleyball program opened its season at home on Tuesday — five days after its first scheduled game was snowed out — and it was a good day for both squads, with the 7th-grade team winning in three sets over DuBois and the visitors rebounding to win the 8th-grade contest in straight sets.
The 7th-grade match was a back-and-forth battle that saw the Lady Chucks manage to come out on top by a 2-1 margin. Punxsy won the first game before DuBois battled back for a second-set win. The Lady Chucks claimed the third-and-deciding set, though, for the victory. The set scores were 25-19, 26-28 and 25-18.
In the first set, Punxsy charged into the lead thanks to a three-point service run by Madalyn Wachob and four straight aces by Olivia Toven, making it 11-3. DuBois responded and battled to the end, but Punxsy never led by fewer than three points the rest of the set and earned a 25-19 victory.
In the second set, it was DuBois that staked an early lead, and it seemed late as if the visitors would hold on for a comfortable win. But Maggie Guidice had other plans. She took the service line with Punxsy facing game point down 24-21 and rattled off three straight aces and another point to put Punxsy up one before a sideout sent it to extra points. There, though, DuBois ended up securing a 28-26 victory to force a third set.
The Lady Chucks managed to continue the back-and-forth nature of the match in the third set, taking an 8-7 lead on another three-ace run by Toven, then pulling away late on back-to-back four-point service runs by Wachob and Toven. Toven's carried Punxsy within one point of victory at 24-17, and two sideouts later, Makenna Gula finished off the 25-18 win with an ace of her own.
Toven finished with a teamhigh 12 aces on the afternoon, followed closely by Guidice's seven aces and one kill. Wachob finished with three aces and Sara Gotwald two, with Reagan Houk, Kayla Bouch, Lilly Gigliotti, Holly Deppen and Gula all adding one. Chloe Silverstein also had one kill, the team's first of the season.
The 8th-grade contest was rough sledding for Punxsy against a very solid and structured DuBois team. The Lady Beavers fired out of the gates in each of the first two sets, opening a 10-2 lead in the first and a 12-0 lead in the second on their way to 25-8 and 25-13 wins.
Punxsy responded in the third set and gave the visitors a run for their money, even taking the lead near the midpoint thanks to a six-point run by Brynn Hergert that included three aces and put her team ahead 13-8.
DuBois clawed its way back into the game, though, and then took the lead for good on an 11-point run that included seven aces by Ava Baronick and was finished off by her substitute, Ariel Carney. The visitors then went on to win 25-17.
In addition to Hergert’s three aces, Punxsy saw Jalynn Waroquier and Leanne Zampini add two aces each. Lydia Miller and Abigail Schaffer had one ace each, and Teaghan Riggie had a kill for the Lady Chucks.