GIRLS VOLLEYBALL: Stoney Creek slips past pesky Rochester Adams, earns district final date with Eisenhower
BY DAN STICKRADT
SENIOR EDITOR
dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com
Twitter: @LocalSportsFans
ROCHESTER HILLS — Thursday’s performance by Rochester Stoney Creek is far considered a thing of beauty or even a masterpiece of artwork.
In fact, for a team that has hovered in the Class A Honorable Mention portion of the state rankings for nearly two seasons, the performance was somewhat off from what has been the norm the past two campaigns.
Still, the Cougars found enough resolve to overcome some inconsistent play and are headed to the district finals courtesy of their 3-0 sweep of pesky Rochester Adams Thursday night in the district semifinals.
Stoney Creek overcame some sloppy play to eventually dust away the visiting Highlanders via a 25-11, 25-21, 25-18 victory.
“I told them that we were a little sloppy at times and that we have to clean it up,” said first-year Stoney Creek coach Ross Talbott. “We’ll have to play a lot better against (Utica) Eisenhower (Friday) night.”
Eisenhower, ranked 10th in Class A, will be Stoney Creek’s district final opponent. The Eagles, who knocked off Stoney Creek in last year’s district championship match (3-2), dispatched upstart Rochester 3-0 in Thursday’s first semifinal clash.
“They have a good team,” said Talbott. “I know when we beat them earlier in the season at the Bloomfield (Hills) tournament, they were missing their big 6-foot-2 freshman. I’m sure she’ll be here tomorrow. We’ll have to keep an eye on her and their other hitters. We’ll also have to play better in general. We missed way too many serves tonight and made some mistakes.”
Against Adams, Stoney Creek received little resistance in the first set, but found Adams with an 11-8 lead in the second set before pulling back into the lead.
The third set, Adams pulled to within 13-8 before Stoney Creek’s overall talent and athleticism took over to finish off the sweep.
Sophomore Stephanie Smith paced the Cougars (41-13-1) with 35 assists spread out to a blanched offensive attack. MacKenize Wild slammed eight kills, Erika Ward scooped up 13 digs, while Kate Stration and Sara Thompson both served up three aces. The Cougars had eight aces in total.
Madison Tuscany led Adams with 10 kills.
“Madison Tuscany is a big middle and she;s a big hitter. So we focused (on defending) her a lot and (We) made the other players play. I thought we were sloppy at times, but I thought we would be able to (pull away) from them in the end.”
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