Volleyball Battles in Tight 4-Game Match vs. Choate

Last Saturday, the score line said it all. 23-25, 25-27, 25-23, 24-26. In a closely contested match, girls’ volleyball fell to Choate Rosemary Hall in a four-set thriller. This loss—the first loss in a strong start to the season—brings the girls’ record to 5-1.In fact, this Saturday’s game could have gone either way. Lower manager Tim Jones observed that in the first set, the girls took an early lead with Choate trailing by as much as 10 points. “The team was so close at some times, and there was a lot of potential for the win,” Jones said. “I’m really happy about how the girls played, but some points just didn’t go our way, and those had a domino effect.” After lost points, the team sometimes struggled to regroup, and Choate Rosemary was fast on their heels. Big Red’s opponents took the first set 23-25, and the neck-and-neck second set, 25-27.However, the third set highlighted the girls’ toughness. Unfazed at two sets down, the girls fought back with boldness and tenacity in another close set, this time forcing it to Big Red’s favor. The eventual 3-1 loss does not accurately reflect the team’s true strength. While the match score against Choate has been a 3-1 loss in past years, the individual set scores reflected a much stronger Big Red team. Senior co-captain Kaelina Lombardo attributes their strength this year to experience. “Both our new and returning players are strong, letting the team jump straight into practices instead of having to work too much on basic skills,” Lombardo said.

Lower Zaidee Laughlin mentioned court chemistry as a factor in the team’s strong performance. “We have much more chemistry together and we communicate on the court much better than we did last season,” Laughlin said. “I think being good friends both on and off the court is something that has also improved over the year.”Senior co-captain Weilin Chan looked at the loss with optimism. Their five previous games in the season were often one-sided, so this first loss gave the team much to work with. “This match was good forhat we need to work on,” Chan said. “One thing that we’ll be working on is defensive positioning. Lots of the points that Choate scored against us were because they caught us off-guard or out of position.”The team has much to look forward to. At the end of the season, they will only graduate four seniors. Lower manager Kevin Zhen spoke of the qualities of a rather young volleyball team. “This year, seven of our 16 players are lowers, and most of them are starters,” Zhen said. “We’ll have many of the same players for years to come, but at the same time, our younger players can sometimes struggle with the mental side of the game.” When crucial points were played, nerves created errors. Choate took advantage of a stray serve at 24-all in the fourth game to close the match out.Looking ahead to the double-header away games against Pomfret and Kingswood this Wednesday and the away game against Loomis Chafee on Saturday, it will be crucial to move on from the defeat. Lombardo spoke of the importance of erasing this loss from their minds. “After each point, set and game, we need to reset ourselves,” Lombardo said. “It’s hard to move forward if losses are lingering in the back of our heads.”Erasing the loss from their minds does not seem to be a problem. Lower Taylor Jean-Jacques has high hopes for the Interscholastic Tournament at the end of the season based on their performance against Choate, last year’s Interscholastic champions. “We really pushed to play well, and we hope to keep doing this every day in practice as well as in matches to become champions by the end of the season,” Jean-Jacques said.Senior Maddie Firkey agreed. “We have proven that we will be tough competitors this year.”Chan looks forward to their next games. “Last year, the game against Pomfret was really rough for our team,” Chan said. “We weren’t playing our best, and our mistakes were really getting to our heads. This year, I hope we can pull through and really play to our potential.”