Classical wins Lynn volleyball tournament

LYNN – The Lynn Classical volleyball program has only been in existence for five seasons but its rise to one of the top programs in the Northeastern Conference has been remarkable.Saturday at the Tony Conigliaro Memorial Gymnasium at St. Mary’s, the Rams put a stylish cap on the best regular season the program has seen as they swept St. Mary’s, 3-0, to win the City of Lynn Volleyball Tournament for the second time in three seasons.The Rams, who were runner up to powerhouse Peabody for the NEC title this season, finished the season with a 16-4 record and are all but assured of a home match in the upcoming Division 1 North tournament.”To finish with the record that we did this season is amazing. We really have a good team,” Classical coach Frank DeLuca said.Much of the Rams success this season has come from the leadership of seniors Soneta Srey, Cassie D’Agostino and Ivy Martin. On Saturday, it was that troika that came through in the clutch as the Spartans (8-11) pushed the Rams to the brink in each of the first two games.Martin finished the day with a match-high 11 kills while Srey added seven and D’Agostino was a rock on the serve line and on defense.”We really did play well as a team (Saturday),” D’Agostino said.Though it was a 3-0 sweep for the Rams, the match was much closer than that might indicate. The Spartans dropped the first game before running out to a big lead in the second set. But the Rams clawed back and won the final six points of the set to change the momentum for good.”It seemed like we just couldn’t keep the momentum when we had it,” St. Mary’s coach Erin Menard said. “Classical does such a good job of keeping the ball alive and that’s the key to this game.”St. Mary’s jumped out to a 6-2 lead in the opening set before the Rams fought back to put together an 11-2 scoring spurt to take a 13-8 lead on back-to-back aces from Srey. The Spartans rallied to tie things at 13 on a nifty tap at the net by Megan Geaney before Classical took the lead back for good in the set.The Spartans had chances at 18-17 and 20-19 to get even but the Rams frontline was deadly at the net as they pulled away to a 25-19 win.Game two got off to a ragged start on both sides as unforced errors ruled the day. The Spartans opened up another early lead at 9-5, forcing Classical to call timeout. St. Mary’s eventually pushed the lead out to 14-8 thanks to dominance from Geaney and Molly Doyle at the net.The Rams defense then began to frustrate St. Mary’s into mistakes and coupled with strong hitting from Martin and Srey helped turned a six-point deficit into an 18-14 Classical lead thanks to a 10-0 run. St. Mary’s fought back and eventually pulled back even at 22-all.D’Agostino’s put away at the net gave Classical a 23-22 lead before Meridith McDonald’s ace was followed by a nifty putaway by Soraya Auguste that stunningly had the Rams up two sets to none.”At 22-22 I told them that they had another comeback in them,” DeLuca said. “They had already done it once in the set. That showed the mental toughness that we have.”Game three once again started well for the Spartans as they had a 6-5 lead but the Rams then put the hammer down, stringing together a 9-2 spurt to take the lead at 14-7. They eventually extended the lead to 20-10 before the Spartans put together five straight to force a timeout.St. Mary’s closed the gap to 21-18 but the mountain was to big as Classical closed it out on a MacDonald kill that sealed the sweep.