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UL Jets take out Oak Glen’s Golden Bears

Photo Provided Union Local’s Laken Vinskovich hammers home a kill as Oak Glen’s Reecelyn Craig attempts a block during the Jets’ game against the Golden Bears on Tuesday.

MORRISTOWN–Union Local couldn’t have picked a more difficult opponent for Tuesday’s senior night celebration.

The Oak Glen Golden Bears, the reigning West Virginia Class AA champions made the trek south to Morristown as the OVAC’s leading Class AAA and AAAA teams squared off in the hanger.

After battling to a 1-1 stalemate through two sets, the homesteading Jets took control, taking the third and fourth to improve to 17-2 with a 25-20, 20-25, 25-15, 25-18 victory.

The Jets currently lead the OVAC 3A standings with Thursday’s cutoff looming.

Oak Glen, meanwhile, dropped to 18-3-3 with a tough matchup against cross-river and 4A rival East Liverpool looming tonight in New Manchester.

The first set saw the hosts jump out to an early 7-2 lead before the Bears started chipping away, cutting the deficit to two at 9-7.

That’s when a string of errors, which seemed to plague the visitors in the first set, began to unravel the momentary comeback.

A service error, a net error, followed by three attack errors saw UL vault back up to a sizable lead at 14-7.

Whether serving or attacking, Oak Glen had an early issue with hitting long, making UL’s job all the easier.

In addition, the Jets were fittingly receiving solid play from their seniors, led by Olivia Wortman, who finished with a team-leading 11 kills in what turned into a balanced effort from the UL regulars.

Oak Glen is a top team in the area for a reason, and didn’t go down without a fight.

Facing a match point scenario at 24-16, the Bears closed with four straight points before a serve that sailed past the rear line and out of bounds gave UL the first set.

All told, Oak Glen had 10 errors in the first set.

UL again went up 7-3 in the second set before the Bears, and leading hitter McKenzi Martin in particular, started shaking off the cobwebs and connecting on attack chances.

Martin, who led all attackers with 14 kills to go with 10 digs, started banging thunderous kill shots.

A UL attack error gave the visitors their first lead at 9-8 in the second set and when a Tia Vick kill shot from the far left side of the net struck just inside the line, Oak Glen evened the score with a 25-20 set win.

The attack issues resurfaced somewhat in the final two sets, enough for UL to hold off the visitors.

Another issue for Oak Glen was trying to hit around or through Union Local’s blockers, led by Ameera Saunders and Laken Vinskovich, who totaled three and four individual blocks, respectively.

Saunders added nine kills, Vinskovich eight, while seniors Emma Yager and Ella Pietranton added eight and six, respectively.

Delaney Butler assisted on 21 successful attacks for UL.

Her setting counterpart in white, Mikalyn Balch, finished with 38 helpers.

Averi Martin backed McKenzi with 19 kills while Brooklyn Six added eight and Tia Vick and Reecelyn Craig evenly divided 10.

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