Volleyball Preview: St. Henry Crusaders vs. Highlands Bluebirds
St. Henry has gone 10-0 against Highlands recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Wednesday. The St. Henry Crusaders are taking a road trip to challenge the Highlands Bluebirds at 7:00 p.m.
St. Henry is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Kentucky's top teams: Notre Dame Academy, who was ranked second in their home state at the time (St. Henry was ranked sixth). St. Henry lost 3-0 to Notre Dame Academy on Saturday. The matchup marked the first time this year in which the Crusaders were not able to get on the board.
Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 25-23, 25-17, 25-12.
Despite the loss, St. Henry saw an underclassman step up: Kenadi Sieg had 17 digs. Sieg has been hot recently, having posted five or more digs the last three times she's played.
Meanwhile, Highlands entered their tilt with Newport on Tuesday with two consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with three. They were the clear victor by a 3-0 margin over the Wildcats.
The 3-0 doesn't show just how dominant Highlands was: they took every set by at least 16 points. After all that action, the final score was 25-4, 25-9, 25-9.
Ava Muzumdar was a one-man wrecking crew for Highlands as she had 14 aces and three digs. The dominant performance gave her a new career- in aces.
Highlands was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 26 aces. The team's really been improving in that area: they've now improved they're ace total in three consecutive matches.
St. Henry's defeat ended a 12-game streak of away wins dating back to last season and brought them to 11-2. As for Highlands, they are on a roll lately: they've won four of their last five contests, which provided a nice bump to their 5-2 record this season.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Wednesday's game: St. Henry has serving mastered this season, having averaged 7.2 aces per game. However, it's not like Highlands struggles in that department as they've been averaging 13.7. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
St. Henry took their victory against Highlands when the teams last played back in August of 2023 by a conclusive 3-0. The rematch might be a little tougher for St. Henry since the team won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
