Despite winning just one Region 4 game this season and riding a seven-game losing streak, American Fork came into Tuesday night’s first-round playoff match with a lot to play for.
With a win, the Cavemen would have succeeded in achieving all four of their season goals, an accomplishment that coach Jen Hardman had been talking about all season long.
Mission (and goals) accomplished.
The Cavemen dominated the match, never trailing at any point in a straight set victory over West.
“I’m really, really proud. We had some amazing goals this year, and one of our end-of-season goals was to make it to the second round of state, and we did that,” said Hardman.
It was a balanced attack all night from American Fork, whose gameplay was executed to perfection against the Panthers. The offense had West’s defense jumbled, which led to easy free balls back to the American Fork side of the net.
“We knew that our strong points would be putting them deep into the court and hitting them high so that their defense was a little bit more scrambled,” Hardman said.
The American Fork attack was led by junior Clara Baker with a stat line that speaks for itself: a .423 hitting percentage on 14 kills and three errors.
“We just had this mentality of, ‘Let’s do this.’ It was just kind of, ‘Let’s get this done. We can do this. We can fight for this,’” said Baker.
Baker’s first kill of the match was part of a fast start for the hosts, jumping out to a 5-1 lead. West would claw their way back, inching as close as a two-point deficit though at 8-6.
From there, it was all Cavemen as the American Fork offense tallied runs of 4-0, 5-0 and 5-0 to run away with a 25-15 first set win.
“For me on the court, I was wanting everyone to get the next point,” said junior Emma Hardman, whose five kills led the way in the first set for American Fork. Hardman finished the night hitting .466 with eight kills and one error.
Finding themselves trailing early in set two, the Panthers once again found a way to stay close, scoring three straight points and pulling to within one at 4-3.
Much like the first set, however, American Fork’s offense found its groove and answered every Panther score with two to four of its own. The set ended with a 9-2 run to give American Fork a commanding 2-0 lead.
“We also understood that by us blocking angle, we would be able to stop them pretty well,” said the second-year head coach. “They were only able to get two line shots against us.”
Baker’s dominance continued in the third set, scoring the first and final points as part of her six kills in the set to help secure the 25-21 victory.
“From here on out, we are just going to fight until the very end,” said Baker. “No matter what happens, we are going to give it our all.”
Waiting for the Cavemen in the second round is No. 1 Mountain Ridge. With a bye, the Sentinels were in attendance on Tuesday to watch American Fork take home the victory. While the Cavemen haven’t had a chance to scout their next opponent, Hardman believes there is a recipe for success.
“I think this is a new beginning for us and that we are starting at 0-0,” said the junior outside hitter. “We need to practice hard between now and Thursday to get ready for this.”
With all their end-of-season goals accomplished, a win over the top-ranked Sentinels would certainly be icing on top of the cake.
“We’ve been working hard to have that underdog mentality where it doesn’t matter who we play, we are going to fight hard and give it our all because that’s what we can do,” said coach Hardman.
“We want to go create some chaos.”