The Northampton boys volleyball team started their holiday weekend with a matinee Friday afternoon against North Pocono in Pete Schneider Gymnasium. The K-Kids were by far the superior team and took advantage of the matchup to play their entire varsity roster liberally throughout the match in coming away with a 25-21, 25-17, 25-22 straight set victory.

Junior libero Matt Cramer set the tone early in the first set, running off 8 consecutive service points to turn a tight 3-3 contest into an 11-3 no-doubter. For the match Cramer notched 6 aces and the Kids racked up 18 points across his six rotations as server.

The rest of Northampton’s servers were not so effective as the Trojans won 19 of their 60 points on Kids’ service errors.

“We could clear the bench in this kind of match,” explained head coach Sue Arndt. “We’re trying to help these players get to the next level instead of staying stagnant. We saw that in Yariel Lugo (5 kills) today, who did a good job. The pressure wasn’t on, so they could go in a lot looser.”

With the season having passed it its halfway point, the K-Kids are 7-2 overall and 5-1 in the EPC. Many of the top teams, Emmaus, Whitehall, Parkland, and Freedom are still to come in the back half of the schedule, but Northampton is well positioned to qualify for the postseason and possibly claim one of the EPC tournament bids.

Arndt provided her midseason assessment, “We still need to improve our services. That’s not where we need it to be. Everything else is. Caden’s (Dempsey) doing a really good job running the tri middle and talking to his hitters. Kieran Lieb has found a new Kieran where he’s very calm on the court and very leader-like. And that I love. The younger players are seeing a lot from the bench and I love when that happens.”

Northampton 3,

North Pocono 09

Northampton 25-25-25

North Pocono 21-17-22

Northampton kills: Kieran Lieb 7, Matt Gehringer 6, Yariel Lugo 5, Jeremy Nunez 3, Josiah Angstadt 2, Matt Cramer 2, Caden Dempsey 1 (18 assists).