Setting for Princeton like going to ice cream shop in win over Kewanee

PRINCETON - Setting for Princeton’s Makayla Hecht Tuesday night was like going to Sisler’s Ice Cream shop and trying to pick what flavor she wanted.

She couldn’t go wrong with whatever choice she made.

Hecht dished out 28 assists, largely divided between juniors Caroline Keutzer (10 kills), Kathy Maciczak (9 kills) and Keighley Davis (7 kills) as the Tigresses rolled to a 25-8, 25-22 win over Kewanee in a Three Rivers East match at Prouty Gym.

“I can always pick out which one I want to set, which one is on. I can always count on them,” Hecht said. “They were definitely on today.”

“I love Kayla. My favorite setter. No. 10 on the court and No. 1 in my heart,” Maciczak said with a laugh.

Davis helped break open a 6-4 game in the opener with a series of hits mixed in with an ace by Keely Lawson in her seven-point string to take the Tigresses to a 14-6 lead.

Keutzer delivered a kill from midcourt for a sideout at 17-7 and followed an ace by Hecht with another kill off a Kewanee blocker to make it 20-7.

Maciczak hit twice and Keutzer delivered the game winner for 25-8 first set win.

The coach’s dad, Mike Puck, said all the Princeton girls looked the same out there the way they hit, just wearing a different number.

“I think we’re just playing as a team and hitting the ball hard and communicating and having fun,” Maciczak said. “As a team, we’ve started having fun and that builds my own energy and just going out there and giving it my all.”

“We had a lot of energy tonight and came out wanting to win,” Hecht said.

The second set didn’t go as easy as Kewanee dug in for battle, taking leads of 7-3 and 12-7.

Maciczak hit for kills twice to tie the game at 13. Keutzer and Davis took turns at the net to give the Tigresses their first lead at 15-14.

The Tigresses didn’t make things easy for themselves, however, committing their fifth service error of the set to allow Kewanee to tie the it at 15.

“We had five errors, but I tell my kids to serve aggressive,” PHS coach Andy Puck said. “If you serve free balls against a good team, they’re just going to side out, pass, set and terminate.”

PHS went up 20-17 with three straight points, capped by a hit from Maciczak, who played the net like she was on a pogo stick on a series of plays leading up to a kill.

Kewanee’s senior captain, Tejhiana Amos, got active at the net with a kill and a tip to tie the game at 20 and Macy Anderson served up an ace to push the Boilermakers to a 21-20 lead.

Ellie Harp hit for the tie only to have Amos answer with another kill to put Kewanee up 22-21.

Keutzer hit for the sideout to tie the game at 22, leading to a final kill shot by Maciczak to wrap up the 25-22 win.

Puck said the Tigresses took a different path to victory than they did Monday night against IVC.

“(IVC) had a 6-2 and a 6-foot in the middle and neither of our middles were able to do a whole lot, so we set the outside,” Puck said. “Tonight was completely different. I told the team we’re able to win in different ways. When we see some mismatches we try to expose them and tonight it really worked.

Having lost at Kewanee earlier fueled the Tigresses’ fire, Hecht said.

“We definitely were thinking about losing to them and we wanted to beat them,” she said.

Puck said it was a good win for the Tigresses (13-13), who leaped over Kewanee (9-12-3, 4-3) in the conference standings with the win, now at 5-3.

“I’m very, very happy with our kids tonight,” he said. “Having played back to back, we carried a lot of momentum over to tonight. Especially that first set, we were on fire. And you never know what’s going to happen in the second set. Give Kewanee a ton of credit. They came out and battled.

“But really proud of our kids, especially there at the end where Kewanee made a run. We were able to stay tough, stay aggressive, which is one thing we’ve not been able to do this season. We’ve been playing not to lose instead of playing to win. We took a lot of steps forward.”

Kewanee’s leaders were Macee Pickering with four kills, Claire Taylor with seven digs and Kendyl DeBlieck with five assists.