It’s not quite playoff time, but it’s getting to be the time of year when teams find themselves in must win situations.
For Hough High’s volleyball team on Tuesday, the match with Lake Norman didn’t require a win to stay in the hunt for a playoff spot or to fend off elimination for another match. But a win was needed if the Huskies wanted a piece of the I-Meck Conference regular season title.
Lake Norman had not lost in the I-Meck and was the only league team to defeat Hough, doing so on Sept. 15 by a 3-0 score in Mooresville. But the Huskies evened the score with the Wildcats and got the much-needed win by a 3-0 margin at home.
“They came out and played with intensity,” Hough coach Sandi Skidmore said of her players. “This is the time of year when I want to see them start peaking, and they did.”
If both teams win their final I-Meck matches Thursday — Hough is at Mallard Creek, while Lake Norman visits Mooresville — they will end in a tie for first with 13-1 I-Meck records. By the result of a post-match draw Tuesday, Lake Norman would get the No. 1 seed for next week’s conference tournament, but the league’s state playoff seeding would be determined by which team goes deeper in the I-Meck tournament.
Backed by a loud student section, Hough held off Lake Norman 25-19 in Game 1, which included an injury to Wildcat outside hitter Christen Zammit, who did not return.
The Huskies (20-3 overall) were more in control in the second and third games. With Hough leading 17-14 in Game 2, Katherine Kennedy served the next eight points, finishing off the Wildcats 25-14 with an ace. At the end of Game 3, Maddie Lippy had a similar performance, serving seven of the final eight Hough points in a 25-12 win.
Skidmore was pleased with her team’s passing, play at the net and overall. Kennedy, Julia Brown, Nicole Destefano, Nikki Hero, Paige Zartman and Kailyn Overcash all had key points. And as well as the team played in a 3-2 win over Providence on Sept. 17, Skidmore said the Huskies were better against Lake Norman.
“We just played as a team,” she said. “Everybody contributed.”
That’s been the case all year. Four Huskies have more than 100 kills.
Tuesday was also the first senior night for the Huskies. Hough has six seniors, including five Skidmore has coached for four years, also having coached them when they were freshmen and sophomores at North Meck. In that group are seniors Overcash and Zartman, and their upcoming exits mark the end of an era for Skidmore, who coached Overcash’s older sister Kelsey and Paige’s two older sisters, Jill and Tara.
Kelsey Overcash and Jill Zartman have visited Skidmore recently, and Tara Zartman is now a member of the fencing team at Air Force.
