Lily Kelly finished with 8 kills for Pascack Hills, which won two tight sets in a sweep of Westwood on Monday.

MONTVALE - Westwood gave Pascack Hills everything they had but the Broncos won a close match, 2-0 (25-21, 25-23), on Monday night.

“Mondays are always tough to play on,” said Hills coach Lindsay Runge. “Every coach thinks, ‘Ugh - Monday games are just tough.’ And the kids had a half day of school. They were in school for a half day, then they went home and you knew it was going to be a weird game. But I’m happy they did push through it and it gives them experience to deal with these uncomfortable situations.”

The score was tied 12 times in the first set as the teams battled back and forth for the lead.
Broncos senior Elyssa Samani earned a pair of service winners on a kill by junior teammate Lily Kelly and an ace to boost the lead to 9-6. But a pair of attack errors sandwiched around a “dink” by Cardinals junior Brooke Wichmann tied the score 9-9.

Later a four-point service run by senior Ella Espino gave Hills an 18-15 lead. Westwood fought back again to tie the game 20-all thanks in part to a pair of kills each by seniors Riley Merkel and Samara Payne. Hills took the lead for good, 21-20 on a kill by sophomore middle Eva Meyers. 

 “She is so good now,” senior setter Mikka Jarvis said of Myers. “It makes me sad that I’m going to graduate because she’s going to be so good when she’s a senior and I’m so upset that I’m going to miss that.”

Kelly made it 22-20 with a kill and a few points later Kelly and junior Gianna Juliano hammered kills to close out the first set, 25-21.

“I think that our team is very relentless, very scrappy and we work very well together, especially under pressure,” Juliano said. “I feel like we were able to come out on top because we are able to pull ourselves down and calm down. In the end I think we came out on top because of that.”

The Broncos jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the second set as Myers tallied a pair of aces and Juliano and Kelly blasted kills. 

“I always look at which hitters I have before each serve,” said Jarvis. “My coach always says, ‘feed the beast.’ So there is always going to be that one person I keep setting when they are on fire. So I have a person in mind and I base it on that. It’s great that we have a variety.”

“I think we have a lot of different people that have been stepping up in different games, which is a good thing to have,” added Runge. “We get to be versatile and change things up. Today I think it was spread out a little bit more and in the two different sets somebody else was stepping up in a certain way. It’s nice to have multiple people where we can mix it up and support each other.”

But Westwood rallied to tie the set 5-5 as sophomore Maria Papathanasopoulos notched a kill and Wichmann scored twice - on a block and well-placed kill - sandwiched around two attack errors by Hills.

“I was really proud of our team,” said Cardinals coach Kayla Mazurek. “We stayed aggressive the whole game. We were swinging and we made it a good match.”

The teams traded points throughout the second set and the score was tied nine times. Cardinals senior Natalya Vega earned five service winners as she took her team from a 14-15 deficit to a 19-15 lead, prompting Hills to call a timeout. 

Kills by Kelly and Juliano got the Broncos back to 19-17 and three attack errors by the Cardinals enabled Hills to tie the set 20-20.

Merkel put Westwood ahead 21-20 and the team exchanged points until Jarvis stepped to the service line at 23-all. She tallied an ace to give the Broncos a match point and when the Cardinals were unable to return Jarvis’s next serve the match ended.

Westwood, which won a Bergen County Tournament game over New Milford last Saturday, was led by 8 kills from Merkel and 3 kills and 2 blocks by Wichmann.

“We’re over .500 and I’m so happy with the way we are improving,” Mazurek said. “Every single game there is something we are improving on and it’s really great to see how far we’ve come since the beginning of our season. We’re really lucky where we have multiple people who can bring various assets to our game. We have a good plethora of people who can get the job done.”

Kelly finished with 8 kills, Juliano had 7 kills and a block and Myers finished with 4 kills and 2 aces. Jarvis distributed 16 assists, while junior Kasey Feheley-Shell and Espino each scooped 7 digs.

“I’m very happy,” said Runge. “They are bonding every day, they’re very close. When they’re walking in the hallway they’re saying, ‘hi.’ They’re on a mission together. That’s the most important thing. They have a shared goal and they’re on a mission. That allows me to step back and let them do whatever they want with the season.”

“I feel like we started really well and we’re only getting better,” Juliano said. “Our record shows that. When we come into a huddle we’re able to talk to each other. We tell each other, ‘calm down, we got this.’ As soon as we get one pass and get the point, from there we just go up. I think we can get into our heads a little bit but when it comes down to it the team is great and we’re a close group of girls and are able to connect with each other.”

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