Varsity Volleyball: Knights Make Progress at Mason-Dixon

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

                         

The Middletown High School Knights Varsity Volleyball team is not going to be one of those teams who can step out on the court, play a bad game and still win. The Knights are still a developing team trying to find their place this season while trying to elevate a program to places it has never been before.

For the Knights, they are going to have to use every moment that they are on the court whether it be during a practice or during a game to become better as a team. Make no mistake; they have the talent to be successful.

They have senior Erika Pritchard, who may be one of the best pure hitters in the state of Maryland. And Pritchard has proved how talented she is too. Not everyone gets recruited by a Big Ten Volleyball program as Pritchard did.

Adding to the Knights talent is senior Kelsey Buckley who has proven to be one of the best pure setters in Frederick County and an athlete who has college volleyball level talent.

For Middletown it’ll just be about putting the talent they have together and that’ll come on a game-by-game basis. The Knights got another a chance to do that when they played in the Mason-Dixon Invitational at Westminster High School on Saturday September 10^th.

The Knights would have a tough challenge ahead of them at the Mason-Dixon as not only was their pool, Pool C, one of the tougher ones of the tournament but if they made it out of that pool there was tough competition waiting on the other side of the tournament.

Middletown would come out blazing in the tournament as they would pick up a two sets to one win over the Damascus High School Hornets. After falling to Damascus 25-20 in the first set of the match and facing two must-win sets, the Knights would come back and win the second set 25-13 and then win the third set to give themselves the match.

The Knights would then play Atholton and then after falling to Atholton would take on Huntingtown. If the Knights lost to Huntingtown and Damascus beat Atholton then the Knights would be in the consolation bracket.

If the Knights won they would still have a chance at picking up the title. Middletown would take down Huntingtown to enter the knockout round of the tournament but there they would face the stiffest competition that they had seen all year.

They would play the Northern High School Patriots who hold ten state championships to their program name and are the defending state champions after winning the title last year.

Middletown would fight hard as they would fall in the first set 25-19 and then give Northern one of the toughest fights that they would have in the tournament as the second set would have to go into extra points for the Patriots to clinch the set and the match by a 27-25 score.

Still for the Knights there were positives to take out of that. Not only did the Knights dig in their match against the defending state champion and Patriots and almost steal a set from Northern but they also never played down to their opposition.

It seemed as if after the first set against Damascus that would be the case but Middletown would lock in their heels against the Hornets and blow them out in the second set proving that just because they were playing against lesser opposition didn’t mean that they were going to imitate their opponents.

For Middletown, even though they fell in the first knockout rounds the Knights still had a lot to hang their hat on, something that they’ll look to carry into the future.