Lee Volleyball Opens with Win Over Mount Greylock

LEE, Mass. -- Never mind rebuilding, the Lee High volleyball team looked rebuilt on Tuesday in a three-set, season-opening win over Mount Greylock.

 

Sarah Cook had seven aces and five kills, and Anna Wang had 10 digs to lead the 2016 Western Mass finalists to a 25-10, 25-18, 25-22 over last year’s Berkshire North champs.

 

Cook came up with big serves at big moments for Lee (1-0), which graduated five seniors off last year’s 20-3 squad.

 

In the first set, she took the ball with her team down, 5-6. She led off a run of seven straight points with the first of her seven aces in the match. The Wildcats later got a six-point run on Wang’s serve and never looked back.

 

In the third set, Lee had an 11-9 lead when Cook took over behind the back line. She served nine straight points to push the lead to 20-9. The Mounties rallied to within a point but the cushion Cook provided was too much for the visitors to overcome.

 

“We’ve got some really good servers who are able to bring a lot of heat,” Lee coach John Warner said. “And at the high school level, when you have some penetrating serves, it’s a pretty effective recipe for success.”

 

Mount Greylock coach Meghan Albert agreed that Lee’s service game presented a challenge for her squad.

 

“They’ve got two or three really hard servers on their team,” she said. “We’ve definitely got to work on returning the ball. But we’ve got some new players, so we’ll get there.

 

“It’s always good to get [the Lee game] out of the way. It’s good to see how much our players can improve over the season, so it’s a good first mark to see what we can do.”

 

Caroline Hadley and Taylor Hoffstedt each had three kills, and Maddie Albert had five digs and seven assists for the Mounties (0-1).

 

Suriana Lee had 10 assists, and Ahna Schlaefer had four kills for the Wildcats (1-0).

 

After taking a 15-point beating in the first set and falling behind by eight points early in the second, Mount Greylock rallied to make a match of it.

 

Hoffstedt won four straight points -- her team’s longest run of the match to that point -- to trim an 11-4 deficit down to 11-8. And it got as close as three points, 16-13, on Autumn DeLorey’s serve.

 

But Wang served four straight points without the Mounties managing a return, and the visitors never got closer than five points the rest of the second set.

 

In the third, Cook’s nine-point run pushed Lee’s lead to double digits, and the ‘Cats needed every point of that lead to close the match.

 

DeLorey answered with five-point run to get the score to 20-15. A rotation later, Hadley scored five more in a row to get to 22-21 when she fired her second ace of the game.

 

But Lee got a side out, a point on a Bailey Thomas block and a Lydia Morawiec kill to end it.

 

“We played some pretty good ball, considering it was our first game,” Warner said.

 

“I knew we were taller than them. We exploited that in quite a few rotations. [Junior] Bailey Thomas is a dominant middle. Put the ball up for her, and she’ll go over the top of anyone in this league at this point.

 

“I’m excited to see how far we go.”

 

Mount Greylock, which goes to Mount Anthony Union in Vermont next Monday, learned on Tuesday what it needs to do to get better but also showed its will in a spirited third-set comeback bid.

 

“We definitely came out a little bit nervous for our first game, but they stayed with it the whole time,” Albert said. “They didn’t give up on themselves, so I’m pretty happy with that.

 

“It will be great to see how much we can improve before the next time we see Lee [Sept. 25]. It’s always a great battle.”

 

Lee (1-0) goes to Wahconah (1-0) on Thursday.