Carlmont raises the roof in volleyball sweep at Hillsdale

And the painful moment seemed to bring out the best in her and her team. Not only did Carlmont go on to win the point on a block by junior Eva McLinden, Ison turned in one of the plays of the game on the following point, sprinting across the backline to keep a play alive with a tumbling dive, with no hesitation in hitting the floor.

“Not really,” Ison said. “Honestly, if there’s a high ball, I feel like those are the most fun to try and get. Because I know I can run and catch up to them, and everyone gets so excited if you get one of those up. So, I think those are the most fun to get in the back row sometimes.”

What’s more, Ison’s heroics again led to Carlmont finishing off the point with a block, as senior Chloe Harris put the roof to the floor. In fact, the Scots’ first three points of the final set were scored on blocks, with Carlmont totaling six match blocks, all coming in Game 3.

“This is something where we’ve been struggling because we have super tall players who have huge reach, but we weren’t able yet to be that accurate and too strong blocking, as we are in serving or hitting or defense,” Carlmont head coach Sergio Smirnoff said.

“Basically, what we’re trying to do is to raise the level of our blockers when we can be a little bit more consistent,” he said. “So, the same way we score aces — straight aces from the serve, which is now like a constant for us every game — now we want to get to a point where we now get five, six, seven blocks per game.”

Carlmont’s serving was indeed nails. After trailing 10-4 in the opening set, a service tear by junior Olivia Luey got the Scots back into it, before senior Emillia Sim stepped to the service line to front an 8-0 run to give Carlmont the lead.

The Scots (8-3 PAL Bay, 14-9 overall) boast a tremendous depth of servers, and showcased that depth with precision and consistency. Sim totaled two aces in the set, while Luey scored three match aces and McLinden finished with a match-high four aces.

“The six people who I choose to serve, they are amazing,” Smirnoff said. “Amazing servers, all of them. They can hit the spots at will. And still I have people that don’t have the chance to serve.”

What was giving Hillsdale fits was Carlmont’s ability to drop serves inside the 10-foot line, often with topspin or no spin biting toward the floor.

“I think [their depth] is unique, especially for high school,” Hillsdale libero Mia DeMartini said. “They’re really good at placing the ball short. Not many teams have multiple servers that can place the ball inside the 10-foot line. So, I think that kept us a lot on our toes.”

Hillsdale (3-8, 7-19) was without its top scorer Thursday in senior Brooke Weaver. It proved a big loss for a fundamentally sound Lady Knights squad that did show some firepower, as senior Heayam Abulebdeh scored a team-high eight kills, while senior middle Chloe Armstrong came off the bench to add four.

“It’s just about chemistry, it’s about confidence,” Hillsdale head coach Dwight Crump said. “And they’re playing with that. We saw it in each of the sets. We started out really, really good. But it’s just, how do we continue to have that fight to close things out?”

Carlmont’s block rose to meet the firepower, though — not as consistently as the last time the two teams met, Sept. 23, when Hillsdale pushed it to five sets before the Scots earned the win. But, it’s like the old adage goes, it ain’t how you start, it’s how you finish.

“They blocked that well against us when we played them the first time,” Crump said. “We held them pretty well this time compared to the first time we played them. The girls played stronger and better the second time around them. And we came in knowing we had a huge chance to win this game.”

The Knights were certainly on their toes early, as a block on an overpass from junior Ally Lips, followed by back-to-back kills from Abulebdeh and senior Kaylani Kirby stoked a 6-0 run to stake Hillsdale to a 10-4 lead. Then, with Carlmont fighting its way back, a kill off the left side by senior Amelie Jensen pushed the lead to 12-9.

“We usually come out really strong,” DeMartini said. “At the beginning, I think we have a lot of energy, and I think that goes into how we play at the beginning. So, I think that’s something all year we’ve been doing really well, and we kind of surprise teams at the beginning of sets.”

It’s one of the last leads Hillsdale enjoyed all evening though. Carlmont jumped out to early leads in each of the last two sets. The Knights took a quick 10-9 lead in Game 2 on back-to-back aces from senior Kealani Alvarez, and led in Game 3 at 7-6 on a Gianna Morrow kill, and at 8-7 when Abulebdeh tooled the block off the left side. But a kill by Ison forced a side-out, and Ison stepped back to the service line to give the Scots the lead for good.

With the win, Carlmont moves into a second-place tie with Aragon and continues to prove itself among the top teams in the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division. The Scots are one victory shy of their league win total from all of last season. With three PAL Bay matches to go, all against teams trailing them in the standings, the Scots have a chance to earn double-digit league wins for the first time since 2017.

“I think (it’s) a couple of things,” Smirnoff said. “This is my fourth year for Carlmont, and I have nine seniors. All of them were freshmen when I took the program four years ago. So, somebody maybe underestimated the culture, the vision, and the longterm work.”

Smirnoff noted the depth in the program, that now has seven juniors on the junior-varsity team. The JV and freshman teams are each in first place in their respective leagues.