Triton Volleyball: Trojans Marching In Right Direction
SYRACUSE – Needing a spark in a key moment, Triton showed it is priming itself for the postseason. After blowing a huge lead in game two, Triton rallied to win, thrusting itself to a 3-0 volleyball triumph at Wawasee Tuesday night.
Triton opened game two with a 9-0 lead only for Wawasee to rally back to tie matters at 18, then take a 21-20 lead after the Warriors hit the floor to save a point. The resolve of Triton, after a key substitution by coach Gayle Perry, put her top players back in its spots and the Trojans responded. Courtney Jennings hammered home a pair of kills and Nicole Sechrist followed suit with two kills, bringing the Trojans a 25-22 win.
Coupled with its 25-17 score in the first game, Triton had completely flipped the momentum in the Teepee, which seemed like Wawasee was setting course for a four or five set thriller.
“We’ve grown tremendously since we started this (season),” said Triton head coach Gayle Perry. “I don’t have to say much anymore when they are on the court. They know when it’s time to get busy, hey, sideout and whatever.
“I felt good about how we played as a team. When you play as a team, you can do anything.”
Triton’s ability to spurt pushed its fortunes in game three. A six-all score trickled into a 12-9 Triton lead, forcing Wawasee head coach Kayla Riportella to regroup her troops. Triton, however, would go on an 11-6 run very quickly after the timeout. Choosing her spots, Triton setter Hannah Wanemacher was cleverly picking apart the Wawasee defense with smart dumps into space, or setting up her teammates, like Sechrist and Jennings, for bombs.
Triton went on to win game three 25-16.
“We’ve been working on this dump thing with Hannah,” Perry said. “Last year, they did it just because they felt like it. Now, there is a reason why we do it.
“Now, I give them info, and they pick and choose and make good decisions on what to do with it.”
Wanemacher had 28 assists and added 14 digs for an improved Trojan defense, which had Jennings also dig 14 attempts and cover three blocks. Charlotte Morris also had three solo blocks.
Sechrist had 13 kills to lead the match, Jennings adding seven hammers.
Game two will be a talking point for Riportella’s club, which showed the ability to rally in a hurry after spotting Triton a nine-point lead. Spark plus like Liz Hardy, who had a pair of huge blocks and a kill during the run, and the play of Seaquinn Bright, who had moments both on offense and defense, were focuses for the first-year head coach.
“Something we’re trying with my team in this last half of the season is changing the mindset of the way we play the game,” Riportella said. “Instead of focusing on everything that doesn’t happen the right way for us to win a match. If we lose, a lot of the girls will focus on what went wrong. The beginning of last week, we started focusing on what did we do right. What points did we earn in that set, whether getting a kill, an ace or block, what did we earn?
“Having to remind them from time to time that’s what we’re focusing on, that was our change from set one to set two. Earning our points. We earned, I think, 12 points in set one, and finished out with 16 in the second.”
Hardy had five blocks and five kills in the match, while Bright had 16 digs and a team-high nine kills. Olivia Clouse had six kills, Hannah-Marie Lamle had five blocks, Madie Wilson added 26 digs and the duo of Taylor Mock and Brooke Heche combined for 27 assists.
The Wawasee JV made very quick work of Triton, winning 25-9, 25-17 in less than 45 minutes. For Wawasee, Hannah Gaerte had four kills, Laci Loy had four aces, and both Caitlin Wortinger and Elizabeth Kleopfer dug five attempts.
Wawasee (6-19) will host Northridge Thursday in its final Northern Lakes Conference match while Triton (19-10) will visit another NLC team in Plymouth, also Thursday evening.