Spartans sparkling

It's hard to blame the Spartans if they're all smiles on the volleyball court.

With two heavily-recruited seniors in Stephanie Hagins and Juliet Conant smashing the ball from the outside and super junior Haley Uhland facilitating the offense at setter, the East Nicolaus High volleyball team is poised to make a run toward the Northern Section Division V title.

And with the Mid-Valley League title hinging on Thursday night's match at Hamilton City, there is no room for error, and riding the strength of their "Big Three," the Spartans easily blew past visiting Esparto 25-6, 25-17, 25-9 Tuesday night in a match that took less than an hour to complete.

"I think we're a very good team and we can beat anyone," said the 6-foot-4 Hagins, who smashed a game-high 13 kills and smoked four aces in the win. "The teams we lost to were because of our mistakes."

There were very few mistakes by the Spartans on Tuesday night as they overwhelmed the visitors from start to finish.

Hagins rifled two aces, Mariah Walker had four and Conant added two to lead the Spartans to an opening game victory without even breaking a sweat.

And although the visitors put up more of a fight in the second and third stanzas, the hitting ability of Hagins, Conant and company was just too much for Esparto to deal with.

"Haley is going to get the ball in a juicy spot every time, but when she has a bad set Stephanie and Juliet can come in there and bang it," said East Nicolaus co-coach Christopher Abruscato, who noted the athleticism of his two outside hitters.

Of course, Conant and Hagins had a little bit of help with Uhland putting nearly every ball right where it needed to be.

"It's so much fun to watch them hit the ball — it's amazing," said the junior, who finished the match with 30 assists and five digs. "Steph just smashes it and Juliet and I have clicked since last year."

Conant finished with 11 kills, five digs and three blocks while Emily Toledo added six kills and five digs for the Spartans (19-6, 8-1), who can clinch a share of the MVL title with a win over Hamilton, the only team that has defeated them in league play.

"They're one of the better teams we've played, but we've been working on things and we should be much better this time," Hagins said.

Her coach agreed.

"Not to take anything away from Hamilton — they played well — but we weren't as crisp as we could've been," Abruscato said of the four-set 24-26, 25-14, 25-19, 25-13 loss to the Braves on Oct. 20. "We've been working hard and hopefully it will show on Thursday."

East Nicolaus won the junior varsity contest 25-7, 15-25, 15-5. Katie Michel had eight kills and three digs, Darleen Herrin notched four kills, five aces and a block and Carly Anderson added four kills and five aces to lead the Spartans (4-5 MVL).