Girls Volleyball: Madi Malone gets 1,000th career kill as Newark rolls past Seneca

NEWARK — In her two-plus seasons as a starter for the Newark volleyball team, junior outside hitter Madi Malone has shown she has the ability to do anything on the court — one being the gift of smashing the ball over the net at a very high rate of speed.

That ability was on full display Tuesday night.

Malone recorded a match-high 11 kills in Newark's 25-7, 25-12 win over Seneca.

However, it was the one that fell to the floor in non-laser beam fashion during the second set that was extra special.

Malone's dink from the left side — which completed a huge 10-point run to balloon a once three-point edge to 17-4 — gave Malone the 1,000th kill in her still young Newark career.

"I knew coming into tonight that I needed 10 more," said Malone of the milestone, "... but to be honest, I really don't keep track of stuff like that when I'm playing, so I didn't know until it happened."

The match was briefly stopped to acknowledge Malone's feat. Then the hosts put the finishing touches on a dominant night on the court.

"I've yet to see the team play better than that," said Newark coach Tonya Grayson, her team improving to 3-0 on the season. "The girls were clicking on all cylinders ... every one of them. I honestly had trouble thinking of something to say to them after the opening set.

"It was a pretty amazing effort."

Malone also added three of aces in nine service points, while Mattie Chapman posted seven kills, and Megan Williams added six. Cassidy Adams had nine points and Naomi Sweeney eight for the Lady Norsemen.

"I really didn't know what to expect tonight because, as funny as it is, we've never had Seneca on our schedule until this season," Grayson said. "I know they had a great season last year, but also lost a number of players to graduation. Really, tonight was just about doing what we do, and I thought we did it very well."

Newark got five-point service runs by Malone and Sweeney in the opening set to post leads of 8-2 and 15-4, then used a four-point spurt by Williams and three more from Chapman to close out the set.

"Newark is a very, very impressive team," said Seneca coach Noah Champene, his club suffering its first loss of the year to fall to 6-1. "They pass well, they serve well, they block well, and they hit well. They just do everything well, and there isn't a whole lot of weaknesses to their game. I wish we could have played a little better game tonight with better passing and more consistency. We dug ourselves some holes as far as being completely out of our system at times.

"We talked in the locker room of how tonight can benefit us. Where (Newark) is at as a program is where we want to be someday — the way they play, the tenacity on defense and there not giving up on anything. That is where we have to strive for."

The teams see-sawed back and forth at the onset of the second set, with Seneca's Maddie Bromberek putting down one of her five kills to knot the count at 3-3. From there, Newark used a three-point run from Sweeney — and after a winning swing by Seneca's Addie Bland — Malone began and ended the aforementioned set-changing rally with kills, the last putting her over the thousand mark.

"We have a new setter and middle this season, and our first two matches this season we were still trying to come together as a unit," Malone said.

"This match it really came together for all of us I think ... we just clicked."