LYNN — The Bishop Fenwick volleyball team got off to a slow start Tuesday, but the Crusaders quickly overcame that and notched a 3-0 win over Catholic Central League rival St. Mary’s at Conigliaro Gymnasium. Fenwick won by set scores of 25-20, 25-13, 25-10.
“It’s always tough to come into this gym and play well, and we started pretty slow today,” said Fenwick coach Samantha Trant. “But overall I thought we played really well. We were able to use our height to our advantage and make big plays when we needed to.”
St. Mary’s was able to get off to a stronger start than usual, but some inconsistency and a subpar second set left the Spartans too big of a hole to dig out of.
“I think we played really well in the first set and we had some good chemistry out there,” said St. Mary’s coach Mike McDuffee. “But as the set and the match went on, we lost a bit of that energy that we started with, and you just can’t do that against a good team like Fenwick.”
While Fenwick did start the opening set with a 3-1 lead, St. Mary’s quickly fought back and jumped ahead to go up 5-4. After Fenwick fought back to tie and then take a 10-8 lead, the Spartans called a timeout to regroup. After the score got knotted at 12-12, Fenwick took a timeout of its own. The back and forth continued for the rest of the set, with Fenwick eventually taking a 21-18 lead and taking control. After a kill by Olivia DiPietro, the Crusaders took the first set 25-20.
The second set is where the Crusaders were able to separate itself, despite the fact that Fenwick took an 8-4 lead to open the set. The Crusaders rallied to tie the set before a St. Mary’s timeout, but the momentum remained firmly with Fenwick. The Crusaders went on a 7-1 run coming out of the timeout to take control before riding out the rest of the set to an easy 25-13 win.
Trant pointed to the strong play of DiPietro along with Elizabeth Pica and Lexi McNeil that helped get the Crusaders over the edge.
“Our second and third sets were really good today,” Trant said. “We only made a couple of errors total and our service game was really strong. That helped us get ahead and play the rest of the match on our terms. We have several players who are above 5’11”, and being able to use that height to our advantage was big.”
Fenwick continued that strong play right into the third set. The Crusaders went ahead 7-1 to open the set before stretching that out to a 16-4 lead. Despite a short St. Mary’s rally toward the end of the set, Fenwick easily wrapped it up for a 25-10 set win to take the match.
Now at 9-4, Fenwick has its eyes fixed on a state tournament bid. The Crusaders will aim for that all-important 10th win Thursday (5) at home against another CCL foe, Archbishop Williams.
“We’re looking to hopefully clinch a tournament berth this week and then work on trying to get a higher seed the rest of the way,” Trant said. “We set a goal at the beginning of the season to get to 15 wins, and we have a chance to do that. We have an experienced group and a talented group, so I don’t see why we can’t reach that.”
St. Mary’s (4-12) hopes to turn the page and rebound with a win against Saugus Monday (5:30).
“This was a good match for us just because we were able to go up against a very good team and kind of see where we stand,” said McDuffee. “We were able to do some good things, and we were also able to see the kinds of things we need to be able to do if we want to rise to that level.”
