Girls volleyball: Avon gets first home win against Avon Lake in four years

AVON — It's still the first half of the volleyball season, but Avon can cross off one of its goals for the year ... beat Avon Lake at home. This year's seniors had never beaten the Shoregals at home, including a loss at the end of the last season preventing the Eagles from sweeping the Southwestern Conference, but Avon pulled out a sluggish victory in the first game and rolled to a 25-23, 25-15, 25-11 win over Avon Lake. The Eagles, ranked No. 3 in Division II in the first statewide coaches poll, stayed unbeaten at 10-0 overall and 7-0 in the SWC. "One of my big goals coming into the season was to beat (Avon) Lake twice and we've not yet done it," said senior Lily Hamilton, who finished with six kills, two block-kills and 18 assists. Neither team played particularly well in the first set as the two combined for 19 unforced errors. The Shoregals (5-3, 4-2) rode the early hitting of Kendall Bondar, who had four of her team-high 13 kills, to help Avon Lake take a 19-17 lead. Eagles freshman Clare Feaney came up with a kill and a block-kill to go with back-to-back aces from Hamilton to turn the score around to a 21-19 Avon lead. Bondar had two more kills to help take a 23-22 lead, but the Eagles finished out the win on a Peyton Reinhart kill and a pair of Shoregals unforced errors to grab the win. "This was the first time we played in front of a big crowd, and I thought it was a really good experience to have that, work through it, and pull through to the other side," Avon coach Kara Coffman said. "We were a little nervous, made a lot of errors that first set, but it was nice to see them work through that and turn it around the next two sets." "The wind just blew out of our sails pretty quickly, it was really the tale of two teams," Shoregals coach Kristin Primozic said. "I think we really used up all of our energy in the first set, we pushed ourselves so hard because we wanted that first win." Avon Lake was able to stay close early in the second game thanks to three straight kills from Kendall Holley, who was playing in her first match coming back from an injury, but Avon slowly pulled away. Freaney and Hamilton each added three more kills, as the Eagles finished the match on a 16-9 run to go up 2-0 in the match. The Avon defense took control early with a 12-4 lead as Bethany Sherwood and Peyton Reinart each had a pair of block-kills to go with two kills by Londyn Stone who finished with 11 kills in the win. "Since I have been here, we have not beaten them at home," Coffman said. "One of our goals is to beat them both times this year, so this was really nice." Contact James Brady at (440) 329-7135 or jbrady_ct@yahoo.com. Avon 25-25-25, Avon Lake 23-15-11 KILLS: (AL) Kendall Bondar 13, Kendall Holley 6. (A) Londyn Stone 11, Lily Hamilton 6, Peyton Reinart. ASSISTS: (A) Hamilton 18, Kaitlyn Pojman 12. DIGS: (A) Ally Brediger 19. ACES: (A) Hamilton 3. BLOCK-KILL: (AL) Kelsee Dalgleish 2. (A) Sherwood 2, Reinart 2.