Conley topples Triton

By Ronnie Woodward
The Daily Reflector

Sunday, November 01, 2009

After the D.H. Conley volleyball team won its third round state playoff match earlier this week, Vikings’ coach Jennifer Gillikin said Saturday’s match with Triton would be a battle.

She was right.

The two 3-A powers battled in four highly-contested games on Saturday, with Conley coming away with a 25-22, 22-25, 25-18, 25-16 victory.

Triton entered the match with a 25-0 record.

“I am so proud of all 17 of these girls,” Gillikin said. “We had a great practice yesterday; you could just feel it in the gym. All 17 players had a big impact on tonight’s game.”

Kirsten Burt probably had the most impact, as she dominated the net at crucial times.

Burt was the player behind a critical Game 1 rally and she recorded back-to-back kills to end Game 3 after the two teams split the first two sets.

Conley will host Cardinal Gibbons on Tuesday, with the winner advancing to next Saturday’s state title match in Raleigh.

Saturday’s opening game set the tone for the rest of the match, with both teams exchanging the lead at a rapid pace. Triton jumped out to a 10-3 lead, but Conley scored seven points in a row at one point to take a 14-12 lead. Burt had an ace and a kill in that stretch.

Then with DHC trailing 20-19, Burt recorded a kill to tie the game, got another kill to put her team ahead 23-21 and Heather Whitley finished the game with a kill to give DHC a 25-22 victory.

The Hawks then won the second set, 25-22, setting up the critical third game.

That’s when Burt got to the net and came through for her team again.

With the game tied at 5-5, she recorded a kill to spark an 8-2 Conley run, and after Triton rallied a couple of times, Burt finished things with two kills in a row to give D.H. Conley a 25-18 win.

“She had some big blocks tonight, and was also our go-to girl,” Gillikin said of Burt, who finished with 15 kills, 11 digs and six blocks. “They were not blocking us well in the middle and we knew we could score if our middles got the ball. Both Heather and Kirsten did a great job of mixing up where they were hitting the ball and getting the job done.”

The Game 3 win moved all the momentum to Conley’s favor. The Vikes built leads of 4-1 and 8-2 in the final game before eventually winning, 25-16.

D.H. Conley had 54 kills in the match. Whitley had nine of them, and also added seven blocks. Kaitlyn Anderson had 27 assists, nine kills and six blocks, and Kimberly Keiter had 24 assists and nine digs.

Contact Ronnie Woodward at rwoodward@reflector.com or (252) 329-9592.