Belchertown Outlasts Wahconah in Five Sets
DALTON, Mass. – The Belchertown volleyball team Friday was up by two sets and had a 20-16 lead in the third.
It blew that lead, got blown out in the fourth set and still found a way to advance past Wahconah, 3-2, in the semi-finals of the Western Massachusetts Class B tournament.
A Belchertown attacker delivered a spike that Wahconah was unable to return to cash in her team’s third match point in a wild 25-14, 25-23, 22-25, 7-25, 15-10 win for the Orioles, who advance to Sunday afternoon’s regional championship game against Paulo Freire at Chicopee Comp.
“We lost ourselves there,” Belchertown coach Melissa Gramuglia said of the fourth set. “This is a big stage for them, and the first time, really, any of them have been on a big stage for volleyball.
“So, it was just, ‘Alright, we need to make sure we stick together.’ We bump, set, pass, that’s always our game plan: Bump, set, spike. And we stuck to it. And the most important part is that we did that together.
“We live for moments like this. We’ve always been the underdog, so it’s kind of nice for them to see their hard work and dedication and showing up for practice every day and digging their heels in pays off in moments like these.”
Bre Robert had six kills, four blocks and four aces to lead top-seeded Wahconah (18-2), which learns on Monday where and against whom it will open play in the Division 4 state tournament; it entered the game ranked ninth in the commonwealth in the most recent MIAA power rankings.
As good as it has been all season, Wahconah was plagued in the early going with unforced errors, whether it was a low hitting percentage or ball handling errors that gave Belchertown easy points.
“Way more than what we usually have,” Wahconah coach Dave Lussier said of the miscues. “Not to take anything away from Belchertown, but we were just giving too many points away in those first two sets. When you have a team that can pick up the ball like they do and plays hard, you can’t afford to give them any kind of room.”
The first big service run of the game came from Belchertown’s Vivian Ross, who served six straight to take her team from an 11-9 deficit to a 17-9 lead in the first set.
Two sideouts later, Belchertown served three straight, getting kills from Paige Magner and Ava Shea to push the margin to nine points.
The second set was back-and-forth until late, with Wahconah taking its final lead at 18-17 on a Robert kill.
But after a sideout, Magner served three straight to give the O’s a lead they never relinquished.
Wahconah fought off three set points before Shea’s kill gave Belchertown a two-point win in the set and a 2-0 lead in the match.
The third set looked to mirror the first when a six-point run by the Orioles erased a three-point Wahconah lead. Belchertown ended up going ahead 20-16 when a Wahconah hit went long to give the Orioles a sideout.
But a Belchertown service error gave the ball back to Wahconah and Hannah Friedman (three aces, two kills), who served four in a row to give her team a 21-20 lead.
The teams then traded sideouts until a kill from Eva Jacinto gave Wahconah its first set point at 24-22. Robert then won a point at the net to make it a 2-1 game.
Sasha Fyfe (five kills, 13 digs) got Wahconah off to a fast start in the fourth set with a six-point service run that included a pair of aces.
And Belchertown never got any closer. Runs on the serves of Katelyn McCormack, Robert and Olivia Mason pushed the lead to 19-5. Fyfe served out the set with four straight points, the last on a kill by Ava Rose (three kills, two aces).
In the fifth, unforced errors again began to plague Wahconah, helping a three-point run by Belchertown’s Shea and a four-point run on Michelle Zaluga’s serve to open a 10-5 lead.
Wahconah got within three points but no closer as Jordyn Hunter served Belchertown to match point at 14-8, and the Orioles finished the match two points later.
In addition to Wahconah’s early mistakes, the other key to giving Belchertown a fast start was its defense, which made sure that even when the hosts got their hits in, the ball kept going back over the net.
“We really practiced our defense because we knew No. 30 [McKenzie LaBier] was going to be a force to be reckoned with, so we spent a lot of time practicing that,” Gramuglia said. “It really paid off. It was nice to see, ‘Hey, we did that in practice.’ “
Lussier agreed.
“Belchertown played great defense today, brought up a lot of stuff that would normally go down,” Lussier said. “We just never got our offense going today.”