High school boys volleyball: Herriman comes from behind to beat Mountain Ridge in 5 sets

After dropping the first two sets to start its match against Mountain Ridge Thursday night, Herriman was able to rebound in a big way and come from behind to win in five sets in the Region 6 contest.

Because of a season-ending knee injury in its previous match, Herriman was forced to switch up both its defense and offense Thursday, and it showed early.

“This was a big win for us...I think you could tell that we just weren’t ourselves (early). After dropping the first two sets, we decided to go back to our old offense and defense. We plugged another kid in there who ended up having the match of his life and it kept us alive,” said Herriman head coach Austin Linford.

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In the first set, the two teams went back and forth, with neither side leading by more than five points. Mountain Ridge started to pull away late in the set, however, and an error by Herriman’s Mattix Huffman gave Mountain Ridge a 25-19 set victory.

The second set played out very similarly to the first. While Herriman was showing plenty of fight and heart, it just couldn’t get over the hump, and a strong kill by Mountain Ridge’s Shon Schugk gave Mountain Ridge a 25-16 set win and what appeared to be an insurmountable 2-0 set advantage.

Herriman never gave up though, and behind some strong play from both Noah Malloy and Clark Fiedler, was able to mount a feisty comeback.

Herriman ended up winning the third set by a score of 25-23 and the fourth set 27-25. In the fifth and decisive set, Herriman had match point at 14-10, and a blunder from Mountain Ridge proved to be the clincher and secured the improbable come from behind win for Herriman.

“The biggest thing that we need to work on is we need to make our serves when it counts and we didn’t do that in the first two sets,” Linford said. “We also need to realize that it’s the little things that matter, the little details.”