Inauguration Day Scrimmage

Melrose traveled to Newton North and faced off against the Tigers in the first official athletic contest held in the new gymnasium. Both teams gained valuable varsity experience playing solid competition. I found the lighting conditions distracting watching the video, but I haven't heard the players' opinions.

Pictures courtesy of Jeff Mate' video.

Melrose does their pre-game ritual huddle. Note the T-shirts with the "Do the Math" lettering. Nice touch.
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Alyssa DiRaffaele goes up for the spike.
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Athena Ziavras attacks from the outside.
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Jill Slabacheski prepares to serve.
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Sophomore 'Middle' Rachel Johnson follows through on the arm swing middle attack for a kill.

Coach Scott Celli will analyze the game video, searching for both personnel groupings and strategic advantages as he prepares the team for the upcoming season. It's still the first full week of practice, so it's both unfair and unrealistic to analyze strengths and areas for improvement. I'm sure Coach Celli would say the team needs to get better at everything.

At this point, everyone works on all aspects of their offensive and defensive repertoire. The best combinations will attain not only the highest peak performance but also consistency, which often separates excellent from superior teams.

Weather permitting, Melrose hosts Chelmsford in a 2 p.m. scrimmage tomorrow.