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Canfield’s size critical in volleyball sweep of Howland
Canfield’s size
critical in victory
over Howland
By DAN HINER
HOWLAND
Canfield volleyball head coach Maria Householder said the Cardinals have something the program hasn’t possessed in years – height.
That height allowed the Cardinals to sweep Howland 3-0 in the Cardinals’ win on Wednesday night thanks to the performance of the team’s middle blockers.
Sophomore Alexis Netille and senior Natalie Maras combined for 11 blocks and focused their defense on Howland outside hitter Faith Grant.
“We were really trying to get around [Grant] because she was really killing us down the lanes. We had to adjust,” Netille said.
Howland (4-1) jumped out to a 7-3 lead in the first set. But a block by Netille cut the lead to 7-4 and swung momentum in Canfield’s direction.
The block helped establish an eventual 10-0 run by the Cardinals, and two more blocks by the sophomore helped sustain the lead and the win in the first set 25-19.
Howland began the second set by scoring three straight points and took a 3-1 lead. But the Cardinals outscored the Tigers 8-2 in the following sets to take a 10-5 lead.
The Tigers fought back to cut the lead to 15-12 but the Cardinals went on another run in the end of the set to pull away, eventually winning 25-17.
Again, Howland jumped out to an early 9-6 lead to begin the third set, but Netille and Maras helped Canfield regain the lead. The duo scored eight of the team’s final 18 points in the final set. Maras scored five of the final eight points.
Canfield (3-1, 3-0) won the final set 25-13.
Maras led the Cardinals with six kills and was second on the team with five blocks. Netille led the team with six blocks, seven aces and 13 ace points.
Netille said the team needed to keep its energy up throughout the game to prevent the Tigers (4-1, 1-1) from making a comeback. She said if they slowed down they probably wouldn’t have had chances at digs and kills.
Grant finished the game with 13 kills, two blocks and one ace. Householder said the team was focusing on Grant because of her importance to the Tigers’ offense.
“We knew we had to shut her down, I mean they were setting her almost every time,” Householder said. “We knew in the end that’s who we were gonna have to shut down. We didn’t do a very good job of it the first few points of each match, but once we got rolling and we got focused on what we wanted to do instead of what they were doing, we just got on a roll and kept going.”
Howland head coach Amanda Lingenfelter said her team struggled with communication and defense throughout the game. She said if a team can’t communicate or play defense, then the rest of the game plan can’t be executed.
“Strategy is gone when you can’t pass the ball or play defense,” Lingenfelter said. “We had some strategy going in early to get the ball to Faith, but again, if you don’t pass the ball ... our communication broke down a little bit. You can’t really do anything else.”
Householder said the quick start to the season will help Canfield in the near future. She said the team has important matches this weekend and will start a tough stretch at Lakeview next Thursday.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Householder said. “It was nice being able to come in here and being able to run our stuff without a ton of stress on us. We’ll be able to get into tomorrow night and move on to the weekend.”