High school volleyball: Avon overwhelms Amherst in SWC matchup

AVON — Julie Bendzuck knows the run will end sometime, somewhere ... but for now her Avon volleyball team is perfect. The Eagles improved to 10-0 overall and 9-0 in the Southwestern Conference by sweeping Amherst 25-17, 25-21, 25-21 on Tuesday night. Avon hasn't lost a game this year — now 30-0 in sets. The Comets slipped to 8-4 overall and 6-3 in the SWC. "We just talked about it in the locker room," Bendzuck said. "It's going to happen and we'll react when it happens and respond positively. We're starting Round 2 of our conference on Thursday (at Avon Lake) so I just think we need to continue to improve every time we step on the court." On Tuesday, Avon jumped on Amherst for a 5-0 lead to start the match and only trailed twice all night by the slimmest of margins in the third set. The Eagles were that good. Defensively, they kept Amherst from gaining any momentum and answered every Comets run with a run. "I think we put emphasis on defense in practice," Bendzuck said. "We have to play defense in order to score points and keep ourselves in system. I think there were times we could have played better defense, but when you look overall at the strength of our team, that no ball is going to drop without someone going after it." Senior libero Alex Laboy had 17 digs while senior Ashlee Torbert and junior Alyssa Weigman had seven each. "Amherst played really well," Bendzuck said. "They had a huge block and that was something we haven't seen this year. Overall, I'm really happy with how we played." The Comets did block very well. Senior Lauren Pisegna and freshman Nia Hall had six blocks each. Amherst made a few very nice runs at Avon but couldn't sustain the momentum. "Every time we lost our runs, we were either out of position at the net or out of position in the back row," Amherst coach Laurie Cogan said. "We lost our runs. It was on us. (Avon's) a very good team. There's no doubt about it. We came in here playing a team that's undefeated. That wasn't by accident. They're very good." Avon has so many weapons up front, it's hard to defend. Junior Emily Gardner led with 12 kills but Emma Farney had seven, Erin Lynch added five and several others finished with three. "Sometimes we got in a little hole but we got out of them," Gardner said. "We got a couple runs to come back at them. We have amazing depth — everyone can hit, pass, set — anything. We spend a lot of time in practice on defense." "We know teams are going to come out wanting to beat us," junior Jamie Villwock said. "We haven't lost a set yet. We really work in practice preparing for the team knowing exactly what to do. We knew Amherst would be good, they've always been a rival for us. We had to mentally prepare and be ready for them." Amherst, to its credit, battled all night. It kept the first game close until Avon ran off the final four points. Gardner had three kills and Farney one down the stretch. In Game 2, Anna Cairns had two kills for Amherst to close the margin to 23-20 but Farney took a great set from Torbert to knock down the 24th point and Villwock finished it off with a block-kill. Amherst's only leads of the night were 1-0 and 7-6 in Game 3 and the Comets managed to tie the game at 20 after a five-point run only to be outscored 5-1 from there. Freshman Avery Abfall came off the bench for two kills and Lynch had two others. Weigman scored the match-clincher with an ace. "I was just a little disappointed in my team that they didn't compete a little bit harder," Cogan said. "We were kind of on and off. We lacked the consistency that was necessary to be able to play a team of this quality. You've got to have your foot to the pedal the entire time against this team." Junior Delaney Kitchen had seven kills for Amherst, Laken Voss added five and Hall, Pisegna and Cairns finished with four each. Halee McHugh led the defensive effort with 15 digs. Contact Tim Gebhardt at (440) 329-7135 or timothygeb@msn.com. Avon 25-25-25, Amherst 17-21-21 KILLS: (Am) Delaney Kitchen 7, (Av) Emily Gardner 12. DIGS: (Am) Halee McHugh 15, (Av) Alex Laboy 17. BLOCKS: (Am) Nia Hall, Lauren Pisegna 6, (Av) Jamie Villwock 2. ASSISTS: (Am) Laken Voss, Amaya Melendez 10. ACES: (Am) McHugh, Melendez 1, (Av) Emma Farney, Alex Laboy 4.