Varsity Volleyball: Knights and Titans Sit In Same Spot

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

The Middletown High School Knights Varsity Volleyball team and the Tuscarora Titans are two teams who are coming from very different spots but have met somewhere in the middle and are very equal at where they stand.

The Titans are a team that was at the highest of highs last year as they won the Central Maryland Conference Volleyball Championship but have come back down to Earth after losing multiple seniors last year with the Titans still attempting to figure out a way to patch those holes.

Tuscarora (0-3) has had trouble recreating that magic that they had in that championship season as they come into this match-up having not taken a match into the fifth set and have only won one set in two of their three matches while being shutout in set wins in the other ones.

On the other side of the coin, the Knights (1-2) are hoping to expand on the progress they made last season as they begin the early part of this season with high hopes for the future.

Both teams will meet each other when they meet at the crossroads of their respective seasons when they Knights take on the Titans from Ron Engle Court at Middletown High School on Thursday September 15^th.

The biggest issue for the Titans has also been the thing that has helped out Middletown the most, as the amount of starters who graduated for the Titans and a lack of starters graduating for Middletown has played a huge effect on the early season of each team.

The Titans lost three top of the line starters including setter Ysabel Weaver, outside hitter Madeline Roat, and middle hitter Isabella Mendiola with all three having played a huge part in why Tuscarora would take home the title last year.

Because, of this large loss the Titans are still trying to get back on the right foot and fill the roles that Weaver, Roat, and Mendiola left behind as the early season will be more about trying to determine who can best fill in those spaces rather than wins or losses.

On the other side of the coin is the Middletown Knights, who found themselves having not lost a large amount of players to graduation leaving Middletown in a position to not have to do much work from scratch once the season began.

Helping this out even more was the fact that Middletown’s best player, current senior outside hitter Erika Pritchard was only a junior last year meaning that the Knights were coming into this season with one of their biggest weapons in place. This helped provide Middletown with a solid base for the season and a foundation around which they could build the rest of their season.

Even though the Titans and Knights are coming from completely different spots, they both find themselves in a similar position to start the season as both teams are still trying to find the footing that they desire early in the season. Both teams seem to have found at least a slight bit of footing as the Knights have been in every contest that they have played while the Titans have managed to fill the spots that were left after the end of last season.

In the end, this will make for a very intriguing match-up as both the Titans and the Knights come into the match with a lot to gain with a victory after meeting in an unexpected spot.