Volleyball Preview: Hartsville Red Foxes vs. South Florence Bruins
Hartsville has gone 7-0 against South Florence recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Tuesday. The Hartsville Red Foxes will welcome the South Florence Bruins at 7:00 p.m. Hartsville will be looking to extend their current seven-game winning streak.
While Hartsville didn't have the best season last year (they finished 7-11), it's starting to look like those struggles are a thing of the past. They put the hurt on Lakewood with a sharp 3-0 win on Thursday.
The match finished with set scores of 25-18, 25-14, 25-16.
Among those leading the charge was Ava Wilcox, who had eight digs and three aces. That high mark didn't come from nowhere: she now served two or more in the last six games she's played dating back to last season. The team also got some help courtesy of Emmakate Hudson, who had three digs and three aces.
She wasn't the only good server: Hartsville was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 16 aces. That's a new trend for them: they were averaging 0 aces per game earlier this season, but in their last five matches they've averaged 16.6.
Meanwhile, South Florence made easy work of Lower Richland on Thursday and carried off a 3-0 victory.
The 3-0 score doesn't show just how dominant South Florence was: they took every set by at least 11 points. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 25-9, 25-12, 25-14.
South Florence's success was spearheaded by the efforts of Hailey McManus, who had nine kills, three aces, and 19 assists, and Lydia Danford, who had eight aces and seven kills. The dominant performance gave Danford a new career-high in aces. Another player making a difference was Payton Perry, who had four kills and three aces.
Hartsville's win bumped their record up to 8-2. As for South Florence, they have been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four contests, which provided a nice bump to their 4-5 record this season.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Tuesday's matchup: Hartsville has serving mastered this season, having averaged 16.8 aces per game. However, it's not like South Florence struggles in that department as they've been averaging 14.6. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Hartsville took their victory against South Florence in their previous meeting back in September of 2023 by a conclusive 3-0. Will Hartsville repeat their success, or does South Florence have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
