On Wednesday, Sept. 13, the State High girls’ volleyball team took down Altoona 3-2 in its home opener. In a back-and-forth battle, Altoona won sets one and four, and State High took sets two, three, and five. 

The Mountain Lions took the first set 25-20. Early in the set, Alexis Fisher had two amazing serves to give State High the early lead. Altoona stayed competitive the entire set until they pulled ahead late to win. Alex Haskins played well at the net with three blocks and Sarah Tate had several hits resulting in kills.

State High jumped out to an early lead in the second set as members of the State High football team got the crowd going. This was a different experience to away games. 

 “It is a lot more comfortable having a home crowd with the student section. The long bus rides, like one hour 30 minutes, kind of get to us so it’s good to be back here at North,” junior Jessie Campbell said. 

The set continued to go back and forth. State High was down by as many as six points but would end up rallying to get 13 of the next 16 points to win the set 25-21. Tate kept up her high-level play throughout the set. 

State High jumped out to a commanding lead in the third set leading to Altoona calling a timeout to reassess things. This would work for a while because they did not let the lead grow anymore until they hit 17-11. State High would then score four consecutive points to make it 21-11. The Little Lions won the set 25-15 giving them a 2-1 lead.

As the fourth set began, the student section would dwindle to just six standing and a handful more sitting behind. Altoona started hot going up 11-5 but State High would start to claw back gradually until Altoona was up just 12-11. Altoona would pick things up again and bring the score to 17-12 forcing State High to call a timeout. Following the timeout, the teams traded points until Altoona was up 23-18. State High took four consecutive points making it 23-22, but it wasn’t enough, and State High would lose the following 2 points to lose the set 25-22. The match was tied at 2 going into the fifth set.

In the fifth set and final set, the Little Lions won 15-12 as more and more students gathered to see the finish.

Altoona hung in throughout the entire match, but State High played better to take home the win. After the game, Tate said about her individual performance, “I think I played well, there are areas I can grow but I took all of our practice and put it into the game.”

State High is now 1-3 and will be back in action on Wednesday, Sept. 20 on the road against Central Dauphin. Best of luck to the State High Girls’ Volleyball team on the rest of there season.