HALIFAX — There may not have been a girls’ volleyball player in the Schuylkill League with more pressure upon her entering the 2014 season than Halifax’s Autumn Capouillez.
The former hitter not only had to switch positions, but she had to replace one of the league’s leading setters, Catherine Amoriello, who had graduated.
Tuesday night, Capouillez showed she’s successfully made the transition, dishing out 20 assists as the defending Division III champion Wildcats fought off visiting Minersville, 25-21, 25-23, 26-24.
“I had never played setter before in my life, so it was hard. But I like it,” Capouillez said about the
transition. She added three aces. “I kind of always had natural setting hands, but I was told a month before the season that I was going to be setting, so I had little, short time to get it together.”
The victory keeps Halifax (6-1, 5-1 D-III) atop the Division III standings. Tuesday’s crossover victory over the Battlin’ Miners (5-2, 5-2 D-IV), the Division IV runners-up, was the Wildcats’ sixth in a row.
“It’s a work in progress to get them steady every match, to be the same,” Halifax head coach Jackie Miller said about her Wildcats’ scrambling offense. “There are new girls playing together, so they need to learn each other’s tendencies to gel, work together and be more consistent.”
In that way, Minersville is a mirror image. The Miners, dominated by sophomores, had won four straight matches entering Tuesday’s contest and had lost only one set in that stretch. But they were unable to close out the Wildcats, getting swept for the first time this season.
“They were really competitive games,” Minersville head coach Kenton Martin said. “They just outhustled us. We just made way too many unforced errors.”
The Wildcats and Miners were tied 16-16 before a kill by Amber Laudenslager sparked a 6-0 run. Paige Miller served the other five points, producing two aces, as Halifax built a 22-16 edge.
One of Miller’s serves was returned by Minersville’s Meg Schwalm just above the net and was driven to the court by Laudenslager, who finished the match with 11 kills, four digs and three aces.
“I try to be a team leader, so I try and boost us up by getting a kill, and it brings us all back together and then we play better,” Laudenslager said. “I think we just kept playing to our ability. Usually, we start out slow, but we brought it all tonight.”
Minersville cut the margin to three points twice in the first set before Halifax put it away.
Halifax led most of the second set, but Minersville drew even at 21 and at 22. Shannon Buggy served an ace and Miller produced a kill for the two-point margin that the Wildcats held to the finish.
The third game was the tightest. It contained 11 ties and no lead was more than three points. With the score knotted at 24, Buggy scored points on both a dink and a spike to secure Halifax’s match victory.
The close competition didn’t surprise Miller.
“I knew they would mix things up, that we’d have to be scrappy, so if we pursue, we could get the balls back,” Miller said of Minersville. “I knew they would be an opponent we wanted to beat, definitely.”
Miller helped the Wildcats with five kills, 11 digs and five aces.
Emily Bartashus paced Minersville with five kills and five digs, while Schwalm collected 24 digs and two aces and Kayleigh Purcell contributed five digs.
Minersville won Tuesday’s JV match 2-0.