Battle of the banged up: Gainesville volleyball tops Ocala Vanguard despite injuries

Despite both teams being without key pieces of their rosters, the Gainesville Hurricanes and visiting Vanguard Knights put on an exciting showing of high school volleyball on Tuesday night from the Purple Palace on Gainesville High's campus.

After the 'Canes went on a tear in the first set, the Knights returned the favor in the second set.

But come the third and fourth sets, both teams had settled into a "not pretty, but gritty" matchup that resulted in Gainesville extending its win streak out to three wins as the Hurricanes topped the Knights 3-1 (25-19, 18-25, 25-17, 25-23).

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Here are three takeaways from the matchup.

Hurricanes, Knights far from healthy

Tuesday night's matchup was a battle of two banged up squads.

Gainesville was without three players in junior setter Madison Howard, senior middle blocker Ta'Niya Walker and junior outside hitter Brooklyn Tealer, who is committed to play at the University of Southern California.

But the list doesn't stop there for the Hurricanes, who are also without their head coach Chancie Vice, who has been dealing with illness and is expected to return in a few weeks.

However, that won't be the case for most of the injured players, who interim head coach Courtney King said are expected to miss a majority of the season.

"Everyone's on the bench. We're a bench team right now," said King, who has now led the 'Canes to a 3-0 start to the season.

And on the opposing sideline, the story was much of the same.

The Knights were also without three key players. Vanguard senior setter Sophia Reed, junior setter Nadyeska Yace and junior middle blocker Ronya Hamed were all absent against the Hurricanes, which forced the Knights' rotation to look much different.

"It was a little bit of a mess having three players missing and one player playing a position for somebody else," Vanguard head coach Luis Perez said. "But I'm not going to take any credit away from Gainesville. They were playing to win."

Vanguard's Emma Ehmann is adding dimension to her swing

Emma Ehmann, a senior on Vanguard's roster, was the Knights' leader in kills last fall with 262 through 51 sets.

And chances are, she'll lead the Knights again this season, before going on to play college volleyball for Nova Southeastern next year. Except, by the time the Sharks get to claim Ehmann, Perez hopes her swing has more variety.

"We're working on changing her swing from 100 miles per hour to being able to move the ball around and being a different girl — a girl that can swing hard but can also swing soft and move the ball around," Perez said.

There's no doubt about it — Ehmann still packs a punch with her swing.

The senior outside hitter did flash variety while tallying 15 kills against the Hurricanes on Tuesday night.

Don't sleep on Gainesville's Charlotte Gravlee

People don't talk enough about good defense in volleyball.

But spend one match watching Gainesville middle blocker Charlotte Gravlee and those people might start chirping.

"Charlotte's a monster up there," King said. "And we've got Nicole (Ellis) up there. They're all doing very well. They're big girls and they've got a lot of drive at the net... When they're up, they're up."

Gravlee, a junior with the Hurricanes, tallied seven solo blocks and a pair of assisted blocks to help Gainesville keep its win streak alive on Tuesday.

Looking ahead

Gainesville (3-0) and Vanguard (1-2) share the same destination this week as both the Hurricanes and the Knights head to Wesley Chapel to compete in the Nike Tournament of Champions, which spans Friday and Saturday.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: High school volleyball: GHS keeps streak alive with win over Vanguard