Volleyball Preview: Poland Seminary Bulldogs vs. Hubbard Eagles
Poland Seminary has enjoyed the comforts of home their last three games, but now they'll head out on the road. After both having extra time off, they and the Hubbard Eagles will dust off their jerseys to challenge one another at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. The two teams are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
Having struggled with seven losses in a row, Poland Seminary finally turned things around against McKinley on Thursday. Everything went their way against the Red Dragons as they made off with a 3-0 win. The match marked the Bulldogs' most dominant victory of the season.
Poland Seminary walked away with the win (and looked especially good in the first set). The final score came out to 25-13, 25-18, 25-20.
Poland Seminary's success was spearheaded by the efforts of Lucienne Hopps, who had three aces and 18 assists, and Avery Jakubovic, who had four aces and three digs. With that strong performance, Hopps is now averaging an impressive 12.2 assists per game.
Poland Seminary was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 12 aces. That's the most aces they've posted since back in September.
Meanwhile, Hubbard entered their tilt with Salem on Thursday with two consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with three. They blew past the Quakers 3-0. For those keeping track at home, that's the biggest victory the Eagles have posted against the Quakers since October 9, 2017.
Hubbard's not only won, but also showed off some consistency: keeping Salem between 18 and 21 points across their sets. The match finished with set scores of 25-21, 25-18, 25-20.
Hubbard can attribute much of their success to Jillian Palumbo, who had ten digs, and Lauren Komorek, who had 12 kills, ten digs, and four aces. Komorek is crushing it when it comes to kills: she's had at least five every time she's taken the court this season.
Poland Seminary's win ended a 15-game drought at home dating back to last season and bumped them up to 3-16. As for Hubbard, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won nine of their last ten contests, which provided a nice bump to their 17-5 record this season.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Saturday's matchup: Poland Seminary has really dialed in their serving this season, having averaged 6.4 aces per game. However, it's not like Hubbard struggles in that department as they've been averaging 9.3. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Poland Seminary suffered a grim 3-0 defeat to Hubbard when the teams last played back in September. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Palumbo, who had 13 digs and eight aces. Now that Poland Seminary knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
