Boys Volleyball: Avon serves notice with 23 aces in win over Midview

EATON TWP. — It's hard to lose when the deck keeps coming up aces. It didn't seem to matter who was serving as Avon rattled off 23 aces during its 25-4, 25-20, 25-13 win against Midview on Tuesday evening. "They did a great job all-around," Avon coach Adrian Lee said. "A big emphasis has been on our serving lately. We've kind of been in a serving slump, lots of service errors and it seemed like they have been scared to get aggressive lately on the service line. So it was great to see them go out there, have confidence and attack the ball on the service line." Avon (6-1) got off to a fast start with Noah Mai accounting for the first four points — a kill, an ace and two return errors on his other serves. The Eagles quickly established a 14-3 lead before rattling off nine unanswered, six of those points off aces from senior Finn Petzinger, who finished the game with six kills. "The coaches make us work on the toss all the time," Petzinger said. "They'll have us toss it 10 times before we even serve once. I think that's what makes a good serve. We had composure, we focused on serving and consistency and that's really what made the game today." Midview (0-4) refocused in the second set. Trailing 9-3, the Middies finally built some momentum with a kill by Carter McKenna and back-to-back blocks from Peyton Barnette. The Middies trailed 16-14 after scoring three unanswered off Avon attack errors, but the Eagles found some cushion on William Triplett's serve. He delivered an ace and a return error during a three-point run. The Eagles kept Midview at arm's length down the stretch. "My kids are all new," Midview coach Melanie Dougall said. "Just telling them to touch the ball and see where it goes because we were getting aced on. That helped us get some momentum. We might have just bumped it over, but we kept it in play a little bit more in that second set so I was proud of them." Petzinger recorded four of his six kills in the third set during Avon's opening 8-1 run. The Eagles also got a pair of aces from Landon Gomez and a kill from Mai. Avon recorded eight aces in the third set, three of which came from Mai — who finished the game with four — during a run of five straight points that pushed the lead to 20-10. Two kills, an ace and a return error gave the Eagles match point and they closed it out on a Midview serving error three points later. "We contacted our serves high and had some really great tosses," Mai said. "Our team just did better today. I had to get my serve in, I had a great toss with good contact and looked at the ball throughout the serve." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.