LYNN — The Bishop Fenwick volleyball team blanked Catholic Central League rival St. Mary’s in three sets Tuesday at Tony Conigliaro Gymnasium. The Spartans struggled to hold their own on defense against the Crusaders, who won by set scores of 25-18, 25-13 and 25-9.
The win gets Fenwick one step closer in the hunt for a state tournament berth.
“It’s always tough to come in here,” Fenwick coach Samantha Kelly said. “St. Mary’s has a quiet gym so sometimes we come out very quiet. Overall I was happy with the end result being a win. This makes us 6-1 so we’re pretty close to nine wins to qualify for the state tournament.”
Brynn Bertucci led the Crusaders with a season-best 10 kills while Annie Murphy added seven kills.
“St. Mary’s is a great building program,” Kelly said. “Last year there were a lot of free balls and this year they had a good attack on us. Ultimately we did well. Annie Murphy, we always try to feed her and get her started for obvious reasons. She had a good game and it was good to get some of our subs in as well.”
The Spartans struggled to finish on offense against one of their toughest opponents of the season so far.
“Fenwick has some great players on their team,” St. Mary’s coach Mike McDuffee said. “(Bertucci) in the middle was running slides on us and (Murphy) on the right side was very good hitter. We were struggling playing that defensively.
“I actually think defense is the strongest part of our game,” McDuffee said. “We’re a small team so we focus more on trying to be scrappy. But we haven’t faced hitters as consistent as Fenwick (Tuesday). Those players changed the tide of the game in a lot of situations.”
Despite a 3-0 start for the Crusaders, St. Mary’s hung in there and fought to cut the Fenwick lead to 7-5 midway through the first set. From there both teams went on big runs. Fenwick started things off with Sophia Pregent serving to jump out to a 13-6 lead. The Spartans answered back to tie things up at 14-14 behind service points from Alyssa Grossi and Courtney Kostopoulos.
But the Crusaders buckled down and took control from there, ending the set on a 11-4 run to go ahead 1-0.
The second set was similar with both teams going back-and-forth before Fenwick took over. St. Mary’s tied things up a 7-7, but couldn’t last against the Crusaders who went on to take the set 25-13.
The Spartans started the third set with a small run, jumping out to a 3-0 lead behind service points from Kostopoulos. But that was the largest run that St. Mary’s managed and the Crusaders dominated the rest of the way to close out the win.
“A big problem with our game right now is we don’t know how to finish offensively,” McDuffee said. “Our passes our good, we get pretty good balls to set, but then our attack is just not aggressive enough. We’ve been saying all year we need to improve that. It’s a slow process when you’re playing three times a week and you only practice a couple times.”
Both teams are back in action at home Thursday. The Crusaders have a tough test against CCL foe Archbishop Williams (5:30). St. Mary’s (2-6) hosts Matignon (5).
