Melrose traveled to Arlington's luxurious $291 million dollar high school and survived "Malice in the Palace," with a 25-18, 11-25, 25-15, and 25-21 win. The victory boosted Melrose's record to 10-3 and qualified them for the State Tournament.
Bill Parcells has a saying, "If they don't bite when they're puppies, they won't bite when they're grown." Today there was less bite than usual.
Melrose was erratic in the first set, but Arlington's play hinted at resilience. Sabine Wenzel was on point with (unofficially) eight first set kills and there was good dispersion with six Melrosians notching kills.
A controversial rotation error by the Spy Ponders late put Melrose up 23-17 and they closed out the set in pedestrian fashion.
The second set was largely all bad. Arlington forced a Melrose timeout at 6-10 as Melrose scuffled with serve-receive. It got worse from there as MVB trailed 9-17 and 10-21 before succumbing 11-25. Coach Scott Celli chose "time in" versus a second timeout, looking for the team to "figure it out."
The third stanza changed momentum back to Melrose as they opened up with an 8-2 lead forcing a Spy Ponder timeout. Melrose played better but Arlington also hit a wall with inconsistent play of their own. Melrose emerged with a 25-15 win more from Arlington struggles over Melrose excellence.
Melrose approached something closer to usual form in the fourth set, led by Sabine owning the net and Ella Friedlaender powering in kills from the right side. Freshman Amelie Johnson got in with multiple chances to notch her first kill but the magic didn't happen.
Melrose notes: Nailing down a playoff spot isn't nothing. Melrose will have to play a lot more efficient volleyball if they aspire to even a medium playoff run. Recency bias is a well-known mental model where we hang on excessively to recent events.
There were positives. Sabine probably had about 20 kills, Emme Boyer was stout at middle, Ella was productive, and Sadie Smith had her usual solid performance at setter. Danni DiGiorgio had a lengthy service run in the first set.
Melrose hosts Newburyport with its double digit wins tomorrow.
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