The Hagerstown volleyball team traveled to Fountain City on Thursday, Oct. 2, for a Tri-Eastern Conference match with the Northeastern Lady Knights. The atmosphere at match time was electric and further charged by the fact that it was senior night for Northeastern. The two rivals battled toe-to-toe through five sets, and neither team blinked. The will to win between the two rivals was obvious from the opening serve.
The first set set the tone for the night. The score was tied six times. The Knights stormed back from 22-14 to tie the score at 23-23. The score was tied again at 24-24 before the Tigers scored back-to-back to take a 26-24 win.
The Tigers led most of the second set before the Knights pulled even at 20-20. The Knights then moved to set point at 24-21, but they could not finish. The Tigers fought back to tie the score at 24-24 and again at 25-25, 26-26 and 27-27 before the Tigers scored back-to-back to take a 29-27 win.
The Knights flipped the script in the third set. The Tigers led wire-to-wire and were at set point, leading 24-21, with a chance to sweep the match, but they couldn’t close it out. The Knights fought back to tie the score at 24-24 and eventually won 27-25.
The momentum shifted to the Knights in the fourth set. The Knights won the set 25-23 to tie the match at two sets each and force a fifth, decisive set. Northeastern took a 1-0 lead, but the Tigers tied the match and took a lead at 2-1 that they never surrendered, eventually winning the set 15-11 and the match 3-2.
The win extended the Tiger win streak to eight matches and gave them sole possession of second place in the TEC standings.
Hagerstown head coach Brian Dale said he was proud of his team. “We should have won this match in the three sets,” Dale said. “But I am not going to complain. That was the best we have played this season. We beat a very good team.”
Northeastern head coach Anne Wissel was disappointed. “We started slow, but it was good for our girls to play in a match like this,” Wissel said. “They gave it everything they had. This match could have had a different outcome if we had been more aggressive to start the match. We spent most of the match trying to fight back from deficits. I think that the difference came down to desire. Hagerstown wanted to win worse than we did.”
Raleigh Doerstler led the Tigers with 30 kills, close to a school record. Elly Cheeseman and Lilah Doerstler each had 10 kills. Hallie Pruitt led the Tiger defense with 21 digs, Kennedy Romack had 17, Cheeseman had 13 and Harper Fisher had 12. Lilah Doerstler and Avery Slaven both had four blocks. Lilah Doerstler had 28 assists and Millie Glover had 22.
Northeastern statistics were not available.
Hagerstown (16-8, 5-1 TEC) 26 29 25 23 15
Northeastern (16-6, 4-2 TEC) 24 27 27 25 11
JV results: Hagerstown won 2-1
A version of this article appeared in the October 8 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.