Eagles open volleyball season with victory over Holland Springfield
In just its third year of existence, Avon’s boys volleyball team is still in its infancy. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have a landmark win.
Saturday afternoon, in the first match of the season, the Eagles turned the tables on visiting Holland Springfield, a team from the Toledo area. After dropping a very winnable first set, Avon turned up the ace machine and won the next three sets, downing the Blue Devils, 22-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-22.
“It feels great,” said senior Oliver Dobrovic, who contributed seven kills, including the match-winner. “We’ve never won a set against them before, so to beat them 3-1 is a huge step for us.”
Last year, Springfield rolled past the Eagles, 25-14, 25-21, 25-20. Two years ago, it was a two-set sweep of 25-20, 25-17.
“We hadn’t won a set against them until today,” said coach Adrian Lee. “So, it feels great to see the growth and everything. With all the work we’ve put in to come to this win, it’s been an awesome journey that we’ve been on as a team. I think we look better than we ever have. We’ve got great guys, and we are only getting better, every time we practice and every time we play. I think it’s going to be a great season.”
While Lee was not especially happy with his team’s serving overall, the Eagles had 15 aces to just five for the Blue Devils, which certainly contributed to the victory. Freshman Noah Mai topped all players with five aces, and he was backed by Finn Petzinger and Kyle Partridge with three each, Logan Lam with two, and John Ling and Keegan Tarkany with one each.
“I think serving is a strength of this team, but we didn’t serve very well today,” Lee said. “We missed too many serves, and that’s something we work on every day in practice. We put a lot of pressure on them to make sure they’re used to that environment of I need to get this ball in. But it also still needs to be aggressive. You’ve got to find that balance with the other team.”
While several players return from Avon’s 14-10 squad of a year ago, the two standouts against Springfield were relative newcomers. Well, actually, as a ninth-grader, Mai is a complete newcomer. In addition to his five aces, Mai also led the Eagles with nine kills. He was backed by Logan Lam and Dobrovic with seven kills apiece, while John Ling had five, Petzinger had four and Partridge had three.
Just a sophomore, Lam has developed into a jack of all trades, as he sometimes is the setter and sometimes is a hitter. He also was involved with three blocks at the net.
“(Logan and Noah) have both made a huge impact,” Lee said. “Logan’s really stepped up. He played a little bit last year. We had some JV matches last year and he played mostly JV. But he’s been playing club and he’s been working hard. And it’s paid off. He’s made a big impact on our team. And Noah, I don’t know where he came from. This is his first time playing volleyball, and he’s just a stud.”
As the final scores indicated, the teams were relatively even in that the lead was never bigger than five in any of the sets. Avon appeared primed to take the first set, as a 9-3 run turned a 14-12 deficit into a 21-17 lead. However, the Eagles faltered late in the set as Springfield scored eight of the final nine points, giving Lee an opportunity to charge up his troops.
“We talked about it during our first time out,” he said. “I was like, ‘C’mon, we’re way better than this.’ I think it was just nerves playing their first match at home. I think it was kind of getting to them. The ball control was a little off in the beginning, and then they picked it up a notch. Something I’ve noticed in past years is that we tend to start slowly. We need to really work on starting off strong.”
But the Eagles turned it around in the final three sets. In set No. 2, the score was tied at 23 before Avon scored the final two points on a Springfield hitting error and then a solo block by Partridge. In the third set, the Eagles opened a 23-19 lead, but the Blue Devils cut it to 24-22 before committing a net violation to end the set.
The Eagles never trailed in the fourth set, as a kill by Lam and then three consecutive aces by Mai staked Avon to a 4-0 lead and forced Springfield to play from behind. The Blue Devils got within one a few times, with the last being at 17-16. But each time the Eagles would pull back ahead.
With a 24-21 lead, it appeared Dobrovic had won the match with a kill, but he was called for a lift, pulling Springfield to within 24-22. Unfazed, Dobrovic, who was the goalkeeper on Avon’s state championship soccer team this past fall and will play soccer at Ashland next year, got a second chance to put the match away and did so with a kill on the left side.
“It felt great,” he said. “You know, the point before I should have had the winner, but then I got another chance to do it again and I got it that time.”
Next on the schedule for the Eagles is a home match Tuesday against Garfield Heights.
