Ziegler, Baker power Perkins from the middle

PERKINS TWP. — When it came time to be interviewed for this story, at the other end of the gym from where they were warming up, Elizabeth Ziegler told Kelley Baker she could go first. But then, because Ziegler couldn't help herself, she took off in an impromptu sprint race against her best friend. Baker won — or at least Baker was interviewed first — but it certainly wasn't the first or last time Perkins' senior middle hitters competed against each other with all they had. "It is very intense," Ziegler said of their relationship. "We like to friendly bully each other." Few high school volleyball teams have what the Pirates have — a pair of stars taller than 6 feet, both seniors, both at the center of every opponent's defensive game plan. Ziegler and Baker each surpassed 300 kills during their junior seasons, and they've been just as dominant in 2021 with Perkins finishing the regular season at 18-3 (10-2 SBC Lake). The 2-seed Pirates open postseason play Tuesday at home against Mansfield Senior. This isn't just a case of two good players. Ziegler and Baker have countless similarities on and off the court, and that's led to a relationship of pushing each other to be their best while rarely leaving the other's side. "It's insane," Perkins junior Emma Manley said. "I don't even know how to describe it. They're like arch-nemeses but also best friends at the same time." When Ziegler and Baker became friends as volleyball teammates in seventh grade, Ziegler was a foot taller than Baker, who had yet to hit her growth spurt. For years, it was automatic: Ziegler was the taller friend. But not lately. Baker started growing and didn't stop until she cleared Ziegler by about an inch. Ziegler doesn't like to admit that her best friend is now the taller one, but occasionally it'll slip out. "On accident sometimes I admit it," Ziegler said. "I like to say I'm taller." Perkins coach Heath Hamilton first encountered his now-senior hitters at that same middle school stage. He saw potential for height, to be sure, but he most appreciated their work ethics. Coaches often praise such intangibles, but in the case of Ziegler and Baker it really is how they became such a dominant duo. One of them alone, practicing against a player not capable of stopping them, may not have been much help. But together, always on opposite sides in practice, Ziegler and Baker have been making each other better for years. They both compete, giving everything they have because it's their best friend on the other side of the net and they want to win every little battle. "We're never on the same team," Baker said. "We're always fighting against each other. I think having her, a solid blocker, solid hitter, it's always competition against each other." Both contributed to an 18-6 Perkins team as freshmen, but Ziegler tore her ACL during her sophomore year, delaying their true major impacts until their junior year. Baker and Ziegler started to feel during summer practices that they could really break out, and they sure did. The Pirates made a run to the 2020 regional final. Ziegler had 311 kills, followed by Baker's 302. It was the best season in program history. "I knew they could be really good," Hamilton said. "They've probably surpassed my expectations." That prowess has continued this year thanks in part to Madison Satterfield stepping up as the main Perkins setter following the graduation of standout Mollie McVeigh. Ziegler and Baker don't give other teams a break. "It's very comforting," Satterfield said. "I know that they'll put it away, and I can count on them every time." Thanks to the nature of volleyball lineups and rotations, when one of the Pirates' 6-footers is done in the front row, the other slides right in. Baker plays the back row well, too, but it's in the front where she and Ziegler cause opponents problems. "It's like the power duo," Baker said. "I'm in the back row, but then you still have Elizabeth hitting, or I'm hitting. They can't escape it." "I tell her all the time," Manley added, "'Elizabeth, if I was on the opposite team of you, I would be so terrified of you.'" Inevitably, the opposition slides multiple blockers toward the center of the net on most Perkins sets. It often doesn't work at stopping Ziegler and Baker, and when the Pirates choose to set outside to Manley, Alyssa Wentworth or Mia Downing, there are huge openings to hit in. "A lot of teams, they definitely kind of gang up on us," Ziegler said, "and that opens up a lot of our other hitters to get advantages to get kills." Ziegler and Baker don't really want to start thinking about the end of their Perkins volleyball tenure, although they know it's coming. They approach each road game with the mindset that it's their last time playing at a given school. But even when Ziegler and Baker are graduates of the programs, the Pirates won't soon forget them. "They're two players that it's gonna be basically impossible to replace," Hamilton said. "You can't replace 6-foot-1. Their work ethic and the presence they have on the court is the biggest thing that I'll take away and I'll remember." The middle hitters certainly won't forget Perkins. They've got inside jokes galore, although they declined to share any other than hinting that they don't mind giving Hamilton a hard time. "These are some of the best hitters in the district, in the SBC, and people don't really see that they're both just goofy people," Manley said. "We joke around a lot. We have a lot of inside jokes. We mess around, we kind of bully Coach Hamilton a bit behind the scenes." They also, like last year's senior class before them, have inspired youngsters to take up the sport for the Pirates. Mostly, Ziegler and Baker have spent most minutes of the last four falls together, just the way they like it. Even away from the court, on a recent Friday night for example, they found their way right next to each other in the football bleachers wearing matching pink wigs for breast cancer awareness. Ziegler and Baker, on and off the volleyball court, make each other better. And that won't change anytime soon.