Volleyball Shuts Down Deerfield
Upper Joy Liu runs up to serve the ball and the crowd holds its breath. Her hand smacks the ball and it echoes across a tense Love Gym. The ball zips through the air, passing over the net and dropping gently onto the ground. The Deerfield players never stood a chance of returning it. As Exeter wins the point, the crowd goes berserk. Liu and her teammates circle up and celebrate her fifth ace of the game.
In an emotionally charged grudge-match, Big Red broke its two game losing streak in front of an especially large home crowd last Saturday. In light of all the families on campus, the girls’ varsity volleyball team brought its A-game to the doors of Deerfield.
The Lions opened at a blistering pace, taking the first set with a score of 25-15. In the second set, Exeter sputtered a bit. A lapse in judgement let Deerfield back into the game with a 23-25 set loss, taking the second set away from the home team. In the third set, Exeter battled back to grasp a narrow victory (25-23), taking control of the game. The fourth set was just a victory lap for the home crowd’s amusement. Big Red came out on top in the fourth set with a final score of 25-15, sending Big Green on a long bus ride home.
Although the team opened up strong, it struggled slightly in the second set. Senior and co-captain Sophie Faliero gave a rousing pep-talk during a timeout that proved to be a turning point in the game’s outcome.
Lower Dylan O’Day highlighted the moment. “In the first couple of sets, we lost energy. [It was] probably [due to] Saturday classes, but at a time out, Sophie gave our team a pep talk and lifted our spirits,” she said. “She made us cheer after every point and brought us to the win in the end.”
As for other standout performances, Liu was recognized for her brilliant serves. Senior Lizzie MacBride complimented her teammate’s play. “Joy Liu had a really good game. Her serves definitely kept us in it and gave us winning streaks for most of the games.”
Senior Ela Ferhangil agreed with MacBride and also noted the performance of upper Mia Glinn. “Joy Liu served really well during our game. She got five aces and did an amazing job setting, as well. Mia Glinn also did a great job passing and hitting.”
The team has been practicing hard these past few weeks, and the result of that was the excellent gameplay on Saturday. Ferhangil discussed the improvement in their defensive strategies. “We had some really good blocks during this game, which is something we have been working on in practice.”
MacBride also emphasized that the team’s amped spirit throughout the game was lethal for Deerfield. “The highlight for me was the energy of the team. We pulled together and used our energy and enthusiasm to our advantage and that was a threat to the other team.”
Moving forward, the team still has a lot to work on. Ferhangil thought the most important thing to improve was maintaining a positive mindset, especially when they’re behind in a set. “In the second set we got into our own heads a lot, and we lost energy. We need to work on keeping our energy up and not letting one mistake negatively affect our playing.”
The team travels to St. Paul’s School this coming Saturday for a 5:30 PM match. The team will be focusing on bringing everything to practice so they can set themselves up well for the match. According to MacBride, “I hope we use our strategies during practice and bring it to games so we win more and do well in playoffs.”