Boys' Volleyball Takes Two in Doubleheader

Coming off two losses earlier this season, last Saturday, boys’ volleyball came out with a clean victory against Andover and Wilbraham & Monson, 25-16 and 25-22, respectively. Last week, the team focused on their service game and power hitting to prepare for their upcoming matches. As a result, the team’s play in those areas improved greatly.“We had more confidence in our passing, and we didn’t give away as many unnecessary points on serve errors,” prep Graham Rutledge said.Individual players also stepped up their individual games to propel the team to victory. Lower Max Kirsch was able to match up versus Andover’s middle blocker and lower Tim Wu served and hit well. The biggest performance of the weekend, though, was by upper Andrew Poggione.

Despite rolling his ankle in the third set, Poggione powered through the pain.“He was making kill after kill after kill,” senior Kevin Flynn said. Led by these performances, the team cruised through their two games last weekend.The oddest play of the weekend came on the final play of the Andover match. Exeter was up 24-22 in the final set. Poggione went to hit the ball onto Andover’s side, but was blocked. The ball ricocheted over to upper Quincy Tichenor and deflected off of his leg. Andover thought they had won the point, but the ball was still alive as senior captain Alec Hernandez hit the ball over to seal the win for Big Red.The team will face tough opponents next week in rematches against NMH and Choate. After facing them two weeks ago, the team has an idea of what they need to do to prevent a repeat of earlier defeats.“NMH has a couple of massive middle blockers that we need to take care of. Against Choate, we need to pass well because they have some nasty topspin serves,” Wu said.

When it comes to messy plays, the team will need to continue to either avoid them altogether or turn them into something productive as they did this past week. The team’s servers will also have to step up their games. Led by Hernandez and prep Kelvin Green, they will need to add some depth production to get by NMH and Choate. They also will need to keep their passing game strong. “If we don’t do well on serve-receive, then we can’t play volleyball; that goes for every team,” Flynn said.Big Red plays in a doubleheader this Saturday at Choate starting at 4:30. A fan bus could be a possibility, according to Flynn. The team will look to improve their 2-2 record to a 4-2 mark. If they can build on this past week’s performance and continue their team play, then a two-win weekend is certainly a possibility.