O'Bryan, Krejmas Lead Wahconah Over Taconic
DALTON, Mass. -- Kassidy Krejmas recorded 11 kills and five aces Wednesday to lead the Wahconah volleyball team to a three-set win over Taconic.
Kaylee O’Bryan passed out 17 assists and notched four kills of her own in a 25-12, 25-16, 25-16 win.
O’Bryan had three aces in an eight-point run that gave Wahconah its first big lead of the night, a 14-5 edge in the first set.
Taconic got the serve back on a kill by Jenna Gustafson and pulled within six moments later on an ace from Ciana Bennett.
But Wahconah took control for good with a six-point run on Hannah Friedman’s serve to get to set point. Two points later, Krejmas’ kill put the set away.
Wahconah coach Dave Lussier said after the game that he is happy with the way his team is coming together in the abbreviated Fall 2 season.
“It was kind of hard to begin with when you have a compressed season like this and there are so many things that you want to go over,” Lussier said. “Our varsity team is totally different than last year -- a couple of returners. And you want to spend time on drills and things like that but also you have to go into rotational things where they get comfortable playing with each other. We probably focused on a lot of that at the beginning of the season.”
Wahconah’s win on Wednesday improved it to 5-2 and gave the team momentum going into a Friday showdown with Mount Greylock, which entered Wednesday’s match at Mount Everett with a 7-0 record.
“We had a tough beginning of the season,” Lussier said. “But we came off a big win against Lee on Monday, and we have another tough one coming up on Friday.”
On Wednesday, Wahconah took control of the second set midway through.
Krejmas’ kill gave her team a side out with the score 13-13, and Sasha Fyfe ran off eight straight points to give Wahconah a 21-13 lead before losing the serve.
Fyfe recorded three aces and four digs. Olivia Wehner led Wahconah’s defense with 11 digs.
Taconic was stuck playing defense most of the night.
Taconic coach Lance Fyfe said a tough five-set loss at Monument Mountain on Monday may have factored into his team’s performance two days later.
“Our match against Monument, everybody was playing with everything they had,” Fyfe said. “We had them in a couple of different games. We went five games. They beat us by, I think, two. And it was just back-and-forth.
“Then you come in today, and we just never got control of the ball is what happened. We were struggling a little bit with our passing and never got our offense going tonight, and that’s what hurt us. These guys [Wahconah] are just really good.”
Wahconah asserted itself early in the third set, taking a 4-1 lead and maintaining about that margin throughout.
It was 19-16 when O’Bryan went to the service line late, and she closed out the match.
Kacie Chadwell led Taconic with 12 kills and passed out six assists. Brenna McNeice had a team-high 14 assists and a team-high eight digs. Juliana Huxtable recorded seven kills, three aces and a pair of blocks.
Taconic goes to Lee on Friday.