Volleyball Preview: Lake Central Indians vs. Merrillville Pirates
Lake Central has gone 9-1 against Merrillville recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Thursday. The Lake Central Indians will host the Merrillville Pirates at 5:00 p.m. Both teams took a loss in their last game, so they'll have plenty of motivation to get the 'W'.
On Wednesday, Lake Central came up short against Marist and fell 2-0. The defeat continues a trend for the Indians in their matchups with the RedHawks: they've now lost three in a row.
After all that action, the final score was 25-15, 25-13.
Brooklyn Barth put forth a good effort for the losing side as she had 14 digs. She is on a roll when it comes to digs, as she's now had five or more in the last 12 games she's played dating back to last season.
Meanwhile, Merrillville didn't have quite enough to beat La Porte on Tuesday and fell 3-2. The Pirates have now taken an 'L' in back-to-back games.
Merrillville took La Porte into a fifth set but they suffered a heartbreaking five-point loss. The final score came out to 25-27, 25-16, 25-21, 25-27, 15-10.
The loss doesn't tell the whole story though, as several players had good games. One of the most active was Isabella Altieri, who had 21 digs.
Lake Central's loss ended a four-game streak of away wins and brought them to 9-3. As for Merrillville, their defeat dropped their record down to 10-7.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Thursday's game: Lake Central has serving mastered this season, having averaged 8.2 aces per game. However, it's not like Merrillville struggles in that department as they've been averaging 9.9. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Everything went Lake Central's way against Merrillville when the teams last played back in October of 2023 as Lake Central made off with a 3-0 win. Will Lake Central repeat their success, or does Merrillville have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
