by Luke Saliga
The Hawks came into Thursday night’s game with high hopes of beating their rival Marlborough, and they were stunned when the Panthers came in and swept the game three sets to none (25-11, 25-12, 25-12).
The problems started almost immediately when the Panthers went up in the first set 12-4 over Hudson. “We just could not get any offense going on them,” said senior captain Laura Hydro, “and our defensive, which is our strong side, had a tough time getting vollies going.”
The Hawks scored a season low of 11 points in the first set and had to try to regroup for the second set.
The Hawks fans tried to cheer them up in the second set but to little success when the Panthers went up 7-0 to start and sustained the lead through the entire second set.
“We were generating a lot of good aces from our players,”said the Marlborough head coach after the game. “I was surprised how well we started off and how well my girls played.”
The Hawks did make a late surge in the second set closing the score to 7-12, but then the Panthers ran away with the set.
In the third set Marlborough again started off well jumping to a 10-0 start. Like in the second set the Hawks started to come back and pushed the score again to 7-12, but some bad calls by the officials propelled the Panthers to a 7-18 lead and that looked like it might be enough to win.
It was enough, but if one good thing can be said about Hudson’s performance is that they never gave up going on a 5-0 run until Marlborough got the game winning kill to make the third set score 25-15.
“Of course I’m disappointed we got killed. Marlborough seemed to beat us without even flexing a muscle,”said Hudson’s head coach Jennifer Wessel,“but I am proud of my girls for staying strong and never giving up.”
