BLYTHEWOOD – Blythewood’s boys’ volleyball team is back in the win column following a Sept. 12 loss at Clover High School. Monday’s win against Rock Hill was the third in a row for the Bengals.
Rock Hill jumped out to early leads in the first and second sets, but the Bengals fought their way back behind the hitting of senior Isaac Mann to tie the score at the mid-point of each set. Blythewood took the lead late in both sets to sweep the Bearcats with a 3-0 final. They took the first set 25-21, the second 25-20, and the third 25-16.
Mann led with 14 kills and 10 digs. Moore had 11 kills and three aces. Senior Jackson Bottar had 18 assists, six digs, five kills, four aces and two blocks. Andrew Bottar, a sophomore, had 12 assists and eight digs. Russell Daniloff tallied four blocks. Noah Ward had nine digs.
Last week the Bengals went 2-0 against region opponents Fort Mill and Northwestern.
At home against Fort Mill, the Bengals trailed by 10 points mid-way through the first set. Blythewood battled back to knot the score at 24-24, but Fort Mill reached a two-point lead first to take the set with a 27-25 final.
Blythewood recovered to take the second set 25-17 and tie the match at 1-1 before handily defeating Fort Mill with 25-15 and 25-11 finals in the third and fourth sets.
Moore led hitters with 20 kills. He also tallied three aces. Alden Auspelmyer and George Straight had seven kills each. Auspelmyer also had 16 digs. Noah Ward picked up 15 digs, and Moore had 12. Daniloff had a season-high seven blocks. Jackson Bottar had 17 assists, 16 digs and four aces. Andrew Bottar also had 17 assists in the win.
Blythewood traveled to Northwestern on Sept. 19 and came away with a 3-1 win over the Trojans.
Down early in the first set, the Bengals clawed their way back to take the lead late and pull out a 25-18 win.
Northwestern jumped out to a big lead in the second set. Blythewood chipped away back in and tied the score at 23, but Northwestern closed out the set with a 25-23 final.
Seemingly on trend, Northwestern took an early lead again in the third set, but Blythewood came back for the 25-22 win to take a 2-1 lead in the match.
Down early again in the fourth set, Blythewood battled back to take the lead at 20. The Trojans fought off the Bengals’ 24-21 lead to tighten the score to 24-23. A big block by Russell Daniloff and a kill by Alden Auspelmyer gave Blythewood the 25-23 win to close out the match 3-1.
The wins move Blythewood to 9-1 on the season and 5-1 in region play.
Thursday’s match at Indian Land was cancelled due to forecasted severe weather. They will host Nation Ford on Tuesday, Oct. 1, then travel to Catawba Ridge for a region match on Oct. 3.
