Middleton, Fla. — A few things were different for The Villages High School volleyball team on Thursday night.

The ever-consistent serve of junior Taylor Lewis wasn't one of them.

Lewis dished out a match-high 10 aces to lead the Buffalo to a 3-0 sweep over visiting Hernando inside the VHS Gymnasium, as The Villages improved to 3-3 overall on the season.

The win came just hours after VHS fourth-year head coach Mary Pinkowski announced her resignation, citing personal reasons, elevating assistant coach Aaron Woggon to handle the head coaching duties. No interim head coach was officially named by the school.

"There have been some changes and I just feel like we have a lot more fire in our bellies," Lewis said after the win. "We played together as a team and we changed our pregame stuff a lot, and I feel like it showed on the court."

The Buffalo trailed only once in the match — an 0-2 deficit to start the third and final set of their sweep — as a pair of fast starts to the first and second frame set the tone for the night.

VHS jumped out to a 9-3 lead in the first and held six-point leads at seven different points throughout the opening frame, cruising to a 25-20 win.

It was much of the same in the second set, as VHS led by as much as 15-5 midway through and eventually finished on a 5-0 run to win 25-9.

After Hernando enjoyed a brief lead early in the third frame, Lewis helped decide the match with an impressive serving display. The libero stepped to the service line with VHS leading 12-10, with Lewis sparking a run of eight straight points — highlighted by five aces during the onslaught — to close the sweep with a 25-12 decision.

"(Lewis) was fantastic and did an absolutely phenomenal job," Woggon said of his libero. "I think that was the big difference in the game."

The Villages returns to action next Tuesday evening, when they hit the road to take on Suwannee at 6:45 p.m. in Live Oak.


Cody Hills can be reached for questions or comment at cody.hills@tvcs.org or by calling (352) 259-6890.