Tradition Never Dies: Melrose 3-0

Something old, something new. The Melrose Lady Raiders opened the 2009 volleyball season with a convincing 3-0 victory over Watertown at the Middle School Gym.

The "old" included a vintage effort from returning starters Hannah Brickley, Colleen Hanscom, Laura Irwin, Siena Mamayek, and Jess Farr. The 'new' included the first opening day freshman starter in defensive specialist Amanda Commito, and an extended appearance from reserve setter freshman Brooke Bell.

As a developing program, Watertown struggles against the stronger teams, and that showed today. Melrose jumped out to a 9-2 lead in game one, with Watertown's only points coming on Melrose service errors. Melrose wrapped the first frame 25-4, with the highlights including Hannah Brickley's jump serve and a paucity of kills as the visitors struggled to return serve.

Game 2 saw more of the same, with a 25-6 thrashing, but a few more kills including a trio from Hannah and a pair from Laura. From the middle of Game 2 onward, Coach Scott Celli substituted liberally and everyone saw action.

Melrose captured Game 3 25-10 with yet more domination.

Although the match lacked a high degree of competition, Melrose showed its usual solid defensive flow, and the hitting improved noticeably from last season, with particularly impressive attack rates from some of the younger players including Athena Ziavras and Jill Slabacheski from the outside. Athena showed power and consistency and Jill displayed the knack of hitting down, rendering digging virtually impossible.

As Coach Celli noted after the match, "we play the schedule and face plenty of strong teams this season." The Coach was pleased with the effort and early season performance of his team in all of the preseason schedules.

Melrose has opportunities to improve their serving, with nine service errors, including five into the net, not unusual with a number of young players seeing early season action. However, overall the team shows a lot of promise as they seek to bring the Division II North title 'home'.

Colleen Hanscom had the postgame Tootsie Pops, a tradition started years ago by the Dillons.

Faces in the crowd. The Back Row Gang came out in force, and former All-State Middle Hitter Karen Sen and Lady Raider hoopster Sam Bell were on hand.

A shout out to Joe Celli, unable attend today with illness...get well soon, and the Melrose volleyball family looks forward to seeing you in the stands soon.