Polk serving notice in conference race, adds to win streak

Polk County’s volleyball team has made serving and receiving serve a focus this season. Opposing coaches are beginning to take notice.

The latest to learn of the Wolverines’ prowess in both areas is Avery, the Vikings getting a firsthand look Thursday at Polk’s service skills during a 25-18, 25-22, 25-12 loss in a Western Highlands Conference match at Polk.

Addie Lynch and Kendall Hall each had four aces and Lauren Ketwitz had three as Polk County (6-3, 4-0) controlled play for much of the evening. Avery (2-6, 1-2) hung tough in the second set, then kept the third set close until Lynch’s serving and hitting by Reagan Waddell and Grace Lauer helped Polk pull away.

“I’ve had other coaches asking me what we do to work on serving,” said Polk County head coach Molly Hill. “We work at least part of every practice on nothing but serving and serve receive. It’s definitely a strong point for us. I want us to be a good serving team and a good serve receive team. That’s why we work on that a lot in practice every day, and it’s definitely showing.”

The Wolverines have now won four straight matches, dropping just a single set in the four wins, and Hill thinks that’s a sign of good things to come.

“The past couple of games have been good conference wins and have given us some confidence,” Hill said. “We need to tweak a couple of things and speed up things a bit, but we’re really getting there and are getting prepared for some big games in the next couple of weeks.”

Lynch finished with seven kills, six digs and two blocks to go with her four aces while Hall had 15 digs and Ketwitz had nine assists and 14 digs.

Waddell had 11 kills, 20 digs and two blocks, Lauer had six kills, Cameron Capozzi had 17 digs and Georgia Garrett had 12 assists and 11 digs for Polk, which travels to Rosman on Monday for a non-conference match.