An excitement-filled gym with parents and students from both schools was the setting for this rivalry clash. During warmups the music was pounding, people were talking at a fast pace, and you could really feel the nervous tension building up.
The first set of the match began with some basic rallying for points by each team, but the first real roar came from the Dons side when at 2-4 (Cougars lead) Tyanna Roy was fed a perfect set by Jojo Harnish and pounded it down for a kill. At 4-5 Amanda Jarquin sent an ace serve onto the Cougars’ floor. At 6-6, Brooke Aiello, playing in the back row had to jerk herself out of the way of a Cougars serve that was out by inches. At 7-7 when she had rotated to the front row, she went up high to stuff a Cougars kill attempt. With the score at 9-9 Harnish, whose serves were excellent, sent a serve over, just barely clearing the net for an ace. The scoring was going back and forth and at 12-13 Rachel Cox put a dramatic end to a very long rally with a big kill. Aiello came up with two big point drilling the ball down at 15-20 and 17-20. Then it was Harnish again with the serve, and she ran off four straight to bring the score to 22-21 Dons lead. The scoring again was back and forth, going into overtime, but the Cougars eventually prevailed. Final score Dons 24, Cougars 26.
The second set did not go quite as well as the first, but Jarquin was the first to make a statement with a beautiful power dink past two Campo defenders for the first point. Alex Ligouri came up with an untouched ace at 4-5 and then it was Harnish with the set to Jarquin for a big kill. Next point, at 6-5 Ligouri served up another ace. Back and forth scoring with Kendall Baker coming up big at 10-11 with a crush on a 1-set by Julia Amaral. At 16-20 Lila Schoenfield and Amaral teamed up to deny a Cougar kill attempt by going up high and over the net to block the big Campo outside hitter. At that point the Cougars began a rally of points that the Dons could not overcome. Final score of set 2 was 17-25.
Set 3 was fairly basic (although very exciting) volleyball with the two teams trading points. At 11-14 and 12-14 Roy came up with a big kill and followed it with an even bigger roof job on the Campo middle-hitter. All of a sudden the game became very close and the excitement level kept creeping up. At 18-22 Kendall Baker came up with a well-placed power dink, followed on the next point by a solid block. At 20-22, Jarquin came up with a big kill on a Harnish assist. Final score of set three was 22-25 Campo.
Submitted by Brian Aiello
