Griswold — The Griswold girls’ volleyball team beat Ledyard the first time around in late September, one of many instances this season in which one of several Eastern Connecticut Conference has been capable of beating anyone else.

Ledyard was missing two big pieces for that match, however — junior Lavinia Hutchins and freshman Mmekon Inyang.

The duo were present for Wednesday’s match and made a big difference. They each had 10 kills as the Colonels beat Griswold 25-13, 25-19, 23-25, 25-21 in an ECC Division II match.

The Wolverines beat Ledyard in four games on Sept. 24. Hutchins missed that match to injury. Inyang, meanwhile, had yet to be called up to the varsity.

“This is (Inyang’s) first time playing volleyball,” Ledyard head coach Marin Marciano said. “She almost played soccer. Thankfully, my assistant coach Emily Graves, she’s a Ledyard Middle School math teacher, I had her running the middle school program this past spring. That’s how I was able to recruit (Inyang). Without that program we could continue losing players to other programs.

“It’s really important to show kids how awesome volleyball is and especially a kid like Mmekon. She’s a basketball player. She’s athletic. She has a crazy vertical (leap).”

Senior Aaliyah Amidon had 20 assists, classmate Paige Perkins had seven kills and five blocks and junior Layla Lasisomphone had 15 assists for Ledyard (11-3, 2-1).

Senior Hailey Eliasson had 17 digs, classmate Sonja Matheson had eight kills and six digs and junior Kuranda Ruggiero has 22 assists and six digs for Griswold (8-4, 1-2).

“We’re streaky,” Wolverines’ head coach Jamie Bruno said. “We were up-and-down today. We started very slow, very flat and every time we started to get a little momentum we made an error.

“We’ve been serving a lot better than we did tonight. We have been consistent. We’ve had some girls out sick here-and-there. The past two weeks I’ve rarely had a practice with our full team playing. It’s been tough that way.”

Ledyard flustered Griswold in the first game with its serve. Amidon opened with two aces. Perkins added two of her own on the Colonels next rotation as it went ahead, 9-1.

“The majority of our practices, probably 95-percent of it, is (serving) because it’s such a huge part of the game,” Amidon said.

The Wolverines rallied to win Game 3 after trailing 21-17. Three straight Colonels’ errors gave Griswold a 24-23 lead. Sophomore Gretta Dombkowski ended the game with a kill.

Game 4 was tied at 19 when the Colonels finally pulled ahead on a Perkins kill, a Griswold error and an Amidon kill.

Another Wolverines’ error gave Ledyard match-point. Hutchins took a pass from Amidon for the kill and the win.

“We have a lot better chemistry,” Amidon said. “I’m really proud of this team. I think the big difference for us today is that we didn’t get down like we did last time. We kept the energy, we kept it up and we kept fighting.”

n.griffen@theday.com

Griswold Ledyard volleyball gallery

For more photos from the Griswold Ledyard volleyball match click here.