Volleyball loss to Analy leaves Trojans tied for first

A tough 3-1 loss to Analy left the Petaluma High volleyball team tied for first place in the Sonoma County League.|

Analy vaulted into a first-place tie with Petaluma in the Sonoma County League volleyball race with a convincing 3-1 victory over the visiting T-Girls in Sebastopol on Tuesday night. The win by the Lady Tigers was no fluke as they scrambled to do a better job in keeping the ball alive in the final two sets to pull even in the SCL with both teams now standing at 8-1.

It was a case of the Tigers finding too many holes in the T-Girls’ defense with a combination of kills and placements, and Petaluma could never respond with a late-game run of its own. Analy evened the season series between the two clubs, and improved to 14-4 overall with only three games remaining in league play.

After splitting the first two sets, Analy won the game-changing third stanza by a narrow count of 26-24. Petaluma chopped the gap to one point, and things got a little tense in the Tiger den. It appeared that Petaluma might finally crawl back into the contest in the back end of the set, but a kill attempt by Jaden Krist sailed narrowly out of bounds and ended the Petaluma comeback. The Tigers never looked back.

Analy got terrific play from senior outside hitter Ava Ehens, who consistently found gaps in the T-Girls’ defense with a variety of kills and taps, and the Tigers cruised to a 25-19 win in the final set to wrap things up. Ehens wound up with 17 kills.

Outside hitter Hannah Dillingham did her best to carry the T-Girls back into the fray in the late going, but too many mistakes in team placement and failed service opportunities led to the Petaluma loss.

T-Girl hitters Krist and Grace Ghiradelli had powerful hits at times, but not enough to turn the tide for the T-Girls, who showed a bit of rust in team rotation after a school layoff created by the recent area fires.

Dillingham and Ghiradelli finished with 11 kills each to pace the Petaluma offense. Both hitters regularly rotated out of the contest and T-Girls defensive players could not match the energy of Analy as the Tigers kept the ball alive enough to eventually score off T-Girl mistakes.

Three sustained rallies were all won by Analy. Sabrina Stevens finished with a team high 15 digs.

Dillingham found open spaces with laser-like hits mixed in with some occasional dinks to keep the Petaluma hopes alive.

Improving senior Gretta Grassi had some poised play for Petaluma with six kills and some well-placed serves to keep the T-Girls within striking distance.

“We match up pretty well with their outside hitters, and managed to neutralize Ehens in the first game,” noted Petaluma coach Ryan Hughes. “This game was more important than our make-up game at Sonoma Valley because Analy had lost only one game going in. We will play at Sonoma next week.”

Hughes also noted that the postseason tournament in the SCL has been canceled this season, and the league “has no plans to make any of those games up. Now the game at Sonoma becomes very important.”

The T-Girls still have an opportunity to do some damage in the SCL with the important game against contending Sonoma Valley still on the docket. The disappointing loss at Sebastopol, coupled with another defeat, could eliminate them from their first title contention since 2011. It was the first loss after 12 consecutive wins by Petaluma.

Petaluma captured the junior varsity game with a 15-10 win in the final set to outlast the Tigers, 2-1.

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