High school volleyball: Bountiful outduels Alta in five-set thriller

Bountiful and Alta met tonight in each team’s final preseason match of the inaugural boys volleyball season. It ended up being an extremely heated and emotional match with each team fighting to the final swing.

Alta started the game hot and jumped out to a 2-0 set lead, but Bountiful didn’t back down and roared back to claim the final three sets and the victory.

Alta coasted to a set one victory, led by multiple kills for both Coleman Fisher and Matt McKea. It ended up winning the set on a substitution error for Bountiful.

The Redhawks then began each of the remaining sets with a lead of at least 4 points, include a 4-0 start to the second set. They continued with the lead throughout the set until three consecutive aces from Fisher gave Alta a 21-20 lead, and the Hawks again claimed the set on a Bountiful error.

Bountiful could have very easily given in, but the Redhawks came out in the third set with emotion and momentum. They again jumped out to a 4-0 lead, but this time they never looked back, leading the entire set.

Bountiful sophomore Landon Chism finished off the set with a monster kill from the left side, one of his team leading 11 kills on the night.

“I think we just figured ourselves out a lot,” Bountiful head coach Sarah Chism said. “This was our first away match, so it was a little bit of figuring out how to prepare for that.

“I’m really proud of how they followed the instructions that we were giving. They really just trusted us, trusted the process and trusted each other.”

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That trust allowed Bountiful to take the fourth set and carry momentum into the fifth set, where it never trailed and sealed the come-from-behind victory.

The win was punctuated with an ace from sophomore Connor Burleson, his third and Bountiful’s sixth on the night. Burleson also added 10 kills alongside fellow outside-hitter Chism.

Bountiful now looks ahead to its first official UHSAA sanctioned regular season match against Roy, hoping to rely on Wednesday’s game as an important building block.

“These preseason matches are to show us what we need to learn and fix… I’m super impressed by Alta, we wanted to play the best in the preseason… and they definitely showed us what we need to work on,” Sarah Chism said.