Junior Varsity Volleyball: Knights Clipped in MSD Test

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

The Middletown High School Knights Junior Varsity Volleyball had won four straight sets headed into their match-up with the Maryland School for the Deaf Orioles as the Knights really hadn’t faced much of a test yet.

The Knights would get that test and more when they took on the Orioles as they would fall to the Orioles two sets to one, with the Knights grabbing the first set by a score of 26-24 but then dropping the second and third sets by a score of 21-25, and 12-15 respectively.

For the previous two games in Middletown’s young season the Knights had rolled with a rather convincing degree of execution as they had not allowed an opponent to reach more than 20 points in a set and had won every set that they had played in.

The Orioles would challenge that, as the junior varsity team for Maryland School for the Deaf, the lead development tool of an Orioles’ program that has put on a clinic at the deaf schools level winning championship after championship had more than enough talent to give Middletown a run for their money.

So, even though it was assumed going in that the Orioles were going to give the Knights a test, Middletown would respond well in the first set fending off challenge after challenge from the Orioles and trying to do anything to break away from MSD in the first set.

It would be a tight one throughout the set as Middletown would have to go to extra points to put the Orioles a way but would do just that taking down MSD 26-24 in the first set.

It would head to the do-or-die second set for the Orioles but MSD would hold on that second set as the Orioles and Knights would play another close second set with Maryland School for the Deaf sneaking out a 25-21 win in the second set to push both teams in to the third set.

The difficult thing about the third set is that the set only goes to fifteen points so if one the Orioles or the Knights were to get off to a bad start in that third set it would be tough for them to recover because by the time they began to begin the recovery process the set would almost be already over.

Similar to the first two sets the third set would be a neck and neck race over the set as neither Middletown nor Maryland School for the Deaf would be able to get an advantage until very late in the third set as the Orioles would take a lead late and win the third set 15-12 giving them the set and the match.

It wasn’t all negative for the Knights, as Middletown got a chance to have their first test of the season something that will give them a better idea of what they face throughout the season as the Knights will have to face tough waters as they go through their schedule.