The Maple Mountain Golden Eagles will take on the Taylorsville Warriors at 3:30 p.m. on Friday. Both teams are coming into the contest red-hot, with Maple Mountain sitting on eight straight victories and Taylorsville on seven.
Maple Mountain is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Utah's top teams: Spanish Fork, who was ranked 25th at the time (Maple Mountain was ranked first). The Golden Eagles won by a set and slipped past the Dons 3-2. For those keeping track at home, that's the closest win the Golden Eagles have posted since March 18th.
Maple Mountain took Spanish Fork into a fifth set where they got it done with a eight-point win. The match finished with set scores of 25-7, 25-21, 22-25, 20-25, 15-7.
Meanwhile, it can be hard to translate regular season success to the playoffs, but Taylorsville had no problem doing just that on Monday. They skirted past the Lancers 3-2.
Taylorsville wouldn't go down easily and took Granger into a fifth set where they got it done with a seven-point win. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 25-20, 25-23, 21-25, 21-25, 15-8.
Maple Mountain better focus on containing Radley Johnson and Luke Stonehocker as the pair were huge in Taylorsville's win. Johnson had 11 digs and one assist, while Stonehocker had 16 kills, nine digs, and six aces. Stonehocker has been hot, having posted eight or more kills the last eight times he's played.
Taylorsville was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 17 aces. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now served at least eight aces in eight consecutive matchups.
Maple Mountain's victory was their 15th straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 25-1. As for Taylorsville, their win bumped their record up to 14-12.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Friday's game: Maple Mountain hasn't let much over the net this season, having averaged 7.2 blocks per game. It's a different story for Taylorsville, though, as they've been averaging only 1.1 blocks. Given Maple Mountain's sizable advantage in that area, the Warriors will need to find a way to close that gap. Check MaxPreps after the action for a full breakdown of the game and more volleyball content.
