Lexington historically plays Melrose tough and that is an understatement as Melrose won at home in five sets - 25-21, 23-25, 21-25, 25-5, and 15-8. The win boosts Melrose to 8-3 starting the second half of their campaign.
Wild swings in performance characterized the play, which might be labeled the "Gen Overlan Game." Seldom do you see a player who gets midseason promotion play a key role in helping a varsity team win.
Wednesday afternoon Coach Scott Celli shared that he thought she could end up playing sooner rather than later. Prophetic.
By no means did Melrose dominate the first set as MVB led 21-20 and closed it out with a 4-1 run. In the first set, it was "Casablanca" and the usual suspects as Sabine Wenzel piled on kills.
The first set did not feature a lot of "high octane volleyball."
Adriana Santoriello has an increasing impact on the game. Key plays can occur at any time. Here a diving dig turns into a kill to knot the score at eight.
In an unusual play, Adriana Santoriello digs a serve, leading to a "get me over" free ball kill by Anna Burns.
The second set had more action but less fruitfully so for Melrose. Lexington showed a strong serve-receive game and general defensive excellence. There were some technical difficulties with the feed, limiting highlights.
Melrose trailed 18-21 but rallied to tie the set at 23 after a Lexington time out. But Lexington steadied their ship and Melrose errors gave the Lady Minutemen the set.
Things got worse in the third set but Melrose changed momentum. Trailing 12-19, Sabine blocks with a vengeance to start a Melrose comeback.
Trailing 15-24, Melrose strung together six consecutive service points with Gen Overlan a key architect, but Lexington still led 2-1.
At that point, plagued by defensive inconsistency, Coach Scott Celli made a decision to alter the defense radically, going small with Danni DiGiorgio, Anna Burns, and Gen Overlan in the back. The analogy was Steve Kerr substituting Andre Iguodala for Andrew Bogut in the 2015 NBA Finals. That turned the Finals around as the Warriors beat the Cavs.
Melrose lost the first point of set four, but then reeled off 19 of 20 points to lead 19-2. Sabine must have had a minimum of ten kills during the set and the defense was pristine. Aided by some rest from "all six" play, Adriana seemed revitalized with several powerful attacks as well. Melrose closed out the set in pedestrian fashion 25-5.
The question became not what the lineup would be, but whether Lexington had expended too much mental energy in the first three sets to recharge for the tiebreaker.
Melrose sprinted out to a 6-3 fifth set match with multiple kills. Lex narrowed the margin to 7-5 but Melrose had too much with a Santoriello kill at 10-5, an Overlan service ace to make it 12-7, an Ella Friedlaender crosscourt cut shot to widen the lead to 13-7, followed by a beautiful Elise Marchaise winner to put MVB on the threshold of victory.
With the score 14-8, Sabine added the coup de grace with a smash from the middle and Melrose escaped with the win.
Melrose Notes: Consistency and aggressiveness usually define victory. Melrose's young club went through the "quicksand" in the second and third sets, mostly manifesting as serve-receive problems.
Coaches rely on talent, player development, strategy, and "deployment" to get the right people in the right seats on the bus. MVB defensive changes led to a dramatic surge in overall performance as Melrose finished the match on a 40-12 run.
It was rewarding to see a broader distribution of offense in set five with a true team effort. That said, I expect Sabine to have matched or approximated her all-time record of 30.
Not since 2005 have I seen Melrose put the hurt on an upper division club like that since the 2005 rematch with Lexington. Melrose topped the visitors 25-3 in the first set.
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