The Kentwood High volleyball team still has it.<\/p>\n
The Conquerors drove home that point Wednesday night, sweeping away Kentridge 25-17, 25-11, 25-22 in a South Puget Sound League North Division match.<\/p>\n
The Chargers (1-2, 6-2) stunned the Conquerors (4-0, 8-1) on Sept. 15 in a nonleague match, which left many wondering whether Kentwood could continue its streak of consecutive SPSL North wins.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night, the Conquerors pushed that streak to 55 straight league victories, and did so in dominating fashion.<\/p>\n
\u201c(This game) was really a point of redemption,\u201d said Kentwood junior Erin Campbell, who pounded out a match-high 13 kills to go along with 12 digs. \u201cWe wanted to show everyone how well we\u2019ve gotten since we played (Kentridge) last.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentwood showed plenty from the start, cruising out to a 6-1 lead in the opening game, a 6-1 advantage in the second game and a 4-0 edge in the third game. Campbell, thanks to solid assist work from setter Kayla Hanus, set the tone early and often.<\/p>\n
It was all part of sending a message, Hanus said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t ever underestimate,\u201d said Hanus, who tallied 34 saves on the night. \u201cThis was one of our best matches. I think we\u2019re going to surprise a lot of people when it comes time for district.\u201d<\/p>\n
The win helped Kentwood move into a two-way tie with Auburn Riverside (4-0) for first place in the North.<\/p>\n
Kentwood led from start to finish in the first two games. Kentridge, caught on its heels through games one and two, came alive late. The Chargers stormed back from a 4-1 deficit in the third game to take an 8-5 lead behind the all-over-the-court presence of Jaclyn Onosko. The Chargers, however, could not sustain the momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe dug ourselves into too many holes,\u201d conceded Onosko, who led the Chargers with 7 kills and 3 blocks. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re working on, getting in the lead first \u2026 we can\u2019t get down 6-0 at the start.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tied 14-14, Kentwood sealed the victory with an11-8 run that ended on an unforced Kentridge error.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a very good team,\u201d said Kentridge coach Liz Quitiquit. \u201cIt\u2019s just frustrating that we play so up and down. We\u2019ve talked about how we have to be more consistent and play hard all three games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentwood has won 28 of its last 31 matches with Kentridge.<\/p>\n
Since losing to Kentridge last month, Kentwood has won six matches in a row, including 18 of 19 games.<\/p>\n
Yet, Wednesday\u2019s win wasn\u2019t necessarily about sending a message to the Chargers, Kentwood coach Bil Caillier noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to send a message to them, (it was) to us,\u201d the coach said. \u201cIt\u2019s never about the other team. I\u2019ve been on these girls all week telling them, \u2018You guys have to play every game from start to finish and act like you\u2019re in a fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cTonight we did a better job of staying steady all the way through.\u201d<\/p>\n
The key to Kentwood\u2019s balance play was a spread out attack. While Campbell led the way with 13 kills, Ally Peterson added 11 more while Mikaela Ballou chipped in 7 and was followed by Lychelle Roberts-Kirby (5).<\/p>\n
Outside of Onosko, Manisha Walia led the Chargers with three blocks.<\/p>\n
ELSEWHERE: Kent-Meridian\u2019s Morgan DeCarteret collected 20 assists while Kayla Ierlan added six kills, but it wasn\u2019t enough for the Royals, who fell to Auburn in three games 25-16, 26-24, 25-21. \u2026 Kentlake\u2019s Aryn McCarthy racked up 29 digs while Megan Hartnett added nine kills, but it wasn\u2019t enough for the Falcons in a three-game (26-24, 25-12, 31-29) nonleague loss to Puyallup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Kentwood High volleyball team still has it. The Conquerors drove home that point Wednesday night, sweeping away Kentridge 25-17, 25-11, 25-22 in a South Puget Sound League North Division match. The Chargers (1-2, 6-2) stunned the Conquerors (4-0, 8-1) on Sept. 15 in a nonleague match, which left many wondering whether Kentwood could continue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":6919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6918"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}