Norwalk tops Perkins to stay in first

NORWALK — Host Norwalk entered Thursday's contest on a two-match losing streak. The Truckers were swept by Tiffin Columbian last week before a four-set loss to Monroeville on Wednesday. Norwalk bounced back in a big way, topping Perkins 25-20, 25-11, 25-20, in a key Sandusky Bay Conference Lake Division victory. "Night and day," Norwalk coach Sarah Kipp said. "I think the difference between last night and tonight is you're looking a senior-laden Monroeville team that has a lot of experience and they handled those tight moments really well. "We struggled in those moments. That's not secret. Our youth is learning every time we step on the floor. They're getting better every time we step on the floor." The Truckers (6-5, 3-1 SBC Lake) keep pace atop the league standings with Bellevue (13-3, 3-1) and Columbian (9-4, 3-1), who were both victorious Thursday. "There are literally no nights off," Kipp said. "You go home and look at whatever social media it is to see who did what. That makes it fun. It's fun to walk in night in and night out and be competitive with the league across the board. It'll come down to the wire on who is going to the top." Norwalk was in control from the start. The Truckers didn't trail in the first two sets, jumping out to big leads each time. In Set 1, it was a 4-1 advantage for Norwalk before Perkins (7-7, 2-2) got going. The Truckers had just a two-point lead on an Ainslee King kill that gave Norwalk setter Emily Tyler her 1,000th career assist. That seemed to spark Norwalk. After Perkins cut the deficit to one, the Truckers won six straight points. King had a pair of blocks in the run while Maddie Gamble laced a kill. The Pirates got back within three points a couple times including after a Micah Slay kill, but kills from Sydney Moehlman and King gave Norwalk the opening set. "They're at home and their setter just got 1,000 assists," Perkins coach Brandon Duvall said. "That's a huge accomplishment. Our setter is about to do the same and I hope we have the same level of energy. Something we've learned about our team is we have energy-givers and then we have energy-takers. "We need those people that are taking the energy to give back." The Truckers were even more dominant in the second set. Norwalk raced out to a 7-2 advantage following a block by King and ace from Lola Schlotterer. Perkins never got much going as the Truckers won five consecutive points to go up 14-4. The Truckers slammed the door shut later as back-to-back kills from Gamble gave Norwalk a stranglehold on the match. "That's huge," said Kipp, noting her roster is majority underclassmen. "You look at the floor and we don't boast a ton of experience. We've got one senior that has played for four years (Moehlman) and Reagan (Mooney) was a serving specialist last year. She's done a wonderful job stepping in this year and continuing to improve every day." Perkins finally had sustained success early in the third set, but couldn't keep it up. The Pirates took their first lead of the entire night early in the set and even went up 13-9 after two kills by Slay. Perkins' advantage was 15-12 when Norwalk surged. The Truckers got kills from Moehlman and Tyler to jumpstart a 7-0 run. The stretch ballooned to 10-1 after kills from King and Tyler were followed by a Perkins error. Ahead 23-20, Bella Hernandez and Moehlman each lined kills to give Norwalk the important win. "Norwalk is a good team already," Duvall said. "They have some polished players already. Even though we felt like we had some good moments against them, everybody across the board for us has to at least play a good game. The issue with us is everybody knows where our offense is coming from. We need other people to step up." Slay finished with 10 kills for Perkins while Ferrell Coleman added eight kills. Braelyn Davie tallied 20 assists. "I feel like our kids blocked well against them," Kipp said. "That's two hitters that demand respect because they hit the ball hard. They place the ball well. Ultimately, I think our block did a nice job which then helped our defense. That was really what we were focused on." Perkins is still trying to find out the consistency aspect. The Pirates have wins over Columbian, Oak Harbor and Ontario, and were competitive with Huron. Tyler finished with 30 assists, nine digs and three aces. Gamble registered 13 kills while King added 12 kills and five blocks. Sawyer Wineman led the defense with 23 digs and Schlotterer picked up 10 digs. "Tonight was better than last night," Kipp said. "We had moments where we started to struggle, but they pulled themselves out. We were down in Set 3 and they pulled themselves out. They got ahead, pushed ahead and won."