Yesterday's action, which I'm watching on DVD, showed Melrose at its best as they upset Central Catholic in an exhausting playoff-caliber match. Today, hosting Winchester in the proverbial "trap game", the Lady Raiders staggered through the match, but found their footing to KO Winchester 3-1 to remain undefeated at 11-0.
Winchester looked good in pregame, and they carried it into the first set. Winchester went out fast 4-1, but Melrose knotted it at 4 with an Alyssa DiRaffaele ace and a Jill Slabacheski kill.
The set went back and forth with ties at 6, 7, and 11. Winchester took an edge at 17-13, but a Melrose run carried the lead to 20-18. The Sachems evened it at 21, 22, and 23 but a pair of Winchester errors allowed Melrose to escape 25-23.
Sarah McGowan was huge with six kills, Jen Cain added two kills, and Brooke Bell had a pair of aces.
The second set was all Melrose, from leading 4-2 to 14-2 and 23-4, permitting Coach Scott Celli to get valuable reserves in play. Melrose wound the set down 25-6 and looked to be in cruise control.
The wealth got spread around with a pair of kills for Sarah, two for Kayla Wyland, two for Brittany Adelman, and kills for Rachel, Jill Slabacheski and Jill MacInnes, Jen, and Brooke. Melrose had six aces, including strong service from Alyssa and Sydney Doherty down the stretch.
Melrose came out ready to polish off Winchester, who had other ideas. Amid a series of defensive errors, misplays, and overpasses, the Sachems ran out to 9-0 and 11-1 leads. Coach Celli oversaw a big dose of humility to Melrose, before Melrose scrapped back, ultimately getting ties at 23 and 24. But Winchester got good play from setter Emma Morton and corner hitter Karen Li, and they took a set from undefeated Melrose 26-24.
Sarah and Jill had a trio of kills, Jen had a pair, and Rachel and Kayla one apiece.
There's an old joke about St. Peter and God playing golf in heaven. St. Peter hits a seven iron on a 185 yard par three, to within four feet of the cup. God takes a nine iron, hits a towering shot, that nicks a bird, then lands in a tree, rolls onto the fringe, hitting a squirrel, knocking it toward the hole, where it hits an acorn...and rolls into the cup. St. Peter says, "nice shot. Are we here to play golf or fool around?"
Evidently Coach Celli asked the team something similar...as the Lady Raiders emerged with better focus, running off 11-0 and 20-4 leads before cleaning out the Sachems 25-5. Sarah was the chief culprit, with half a dozen kills, while Jen had 3 in a five point run, and Brooke had a pair with her magic around the net.
Game analysis: Strong teams sometimes play erratically in sports. In 2005, Melrose was undefeated going into Senior Night against North Andover, which arrived about 90 minutes late because of transportation problems. Melrose proceeded to struggle, losing the first set, and battled through a difficult four set win. That team went on to crush North Andover in the D2 North finals, and played in the state championship.
Melrose dominated two sets tonight and scuffled through two other sets. Winchester played very well during the first set in particular, which they could have won without six service errors. Explanations? Melrose played its third game in four days, came off a landmark win (first since 2005) against Central Catholic, and several scholar-athletes were up until midnight doing homework. All that notwithstanding, an excuse-free team kicked off the second half of the schedule with a win. Strong teams can win without their 'A' game.
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