The season for the Northampton girls volleyball team came to an end Tuesday night as they were ousted from the District XI 4A tournament in the quarterfinals in four sets by Emmaus 25-22, 16-25, 18-25, 19-25.

The K-Kids finished their season with an overall record of 11-9. Of their 9 losses, 7 were to teams ranked in the PVCA top 8 in the 4A classification in the state: two to Parkland (#1), one to Freedom (#5), and four to Emmaus (#8).

In the first set Northampton gave the visiting fans reason to hope for an upset as they clawed back from an early 3-6 deficit to take a 13-11 lead halfway through and never fell behind again. Setter Molly Hughes made the key play at the net to earn a side out with the Kids clinging to a 23-22 lead.

The team could not maintain its momentum in the second set as they fell behind 3-9 and never closed the gap to less than two points.

In the third set the K-Kids got out to a strong start leading 9-6. A four-point run by the Hornets staked them to a 11-10 lead and Northampton never led again.

The Kids won the first three points of the final set, but Emmaus ripped off the next six. Northampton whittled the lead down to 10-11 when an Emmaus player suffered a gruesome dislocated shoulder. The Hornets rallied around their fallen teammate and the scoring margin gradually widened throughout the remainder of the set.

In her final match for the K-Kids, Molly Zweifel recorded 8 kills and 3 digs. Fellow senior Elana Erdman had 5 digs.

The core of next year’s team will come from the class of 2023. Those juniors put up the following statistics in the match: Molly Hughes – 4 kills, 16 assists, 7 digs, and 3 aces. Morgan Hughes – 3 assists and 9 digs. Naomi Nebiyou – 8 kills, 9 digs, and 4 aces. Payton Reuber – 5 kills and 2 blocks. Angela Fisher – 11 digs.

First-year head coach Mike Holihan summed up the match and gave his thoughts on the program going forward.

“We had our opportunities,” he said. “We came in with a game plan and executed pretty well. I’m not upset. Every season we want to win and make districts. This is just a building block to a growing program. I would have loved to go to the district semifinals and continue from there, but the players have to understand that each time we make districts, it helps us to get where we want to be in the future.”