MARBLEHEAD — The Marblehead volleyball team got off to a slow start Wednesday but settled down to earn a win in three sets over Winthrop at Marblehead High School. The Magicians trailed by as much as nine points in the first set but rolled from there winning by set scores of 25-19, 25-13 and 25-13.
“Winthrop just came out strong at the serving line,” Marblehead coach Killeen Miller said. “I don’t think our kids expected that right off the bat. We struggled and weren’t really moving our feet. We called a timeout, but it wasn’t really a concern because we knew how to fix it. Once we did that and knew that Winthrop was going to put the ball back over again and again we really executed.”
Lilah Thompson lead Marblehead’s offense with six kills while Anna Arbo added five. Arianna Michaud and Ann Sabin combined for 12 digs. Emme Smith had 17 assists. Miller was also happy to see the Magicians take strides in their service game.
“We’re really trying to work on our service game,” Miller said. “We know where we are strong at and where we want to improve. One area that we’ve really tried to improve is that service line. We want to serve as aggressively as we can.”
The Vikings got off to an ideal start but simply couldn’t sustain it.
“Sometimes we get a little down on ourselves and it’s hard for us to come back up,” Winthrop co-coach Rachel Delsolio said. “That’s something we’ve really been working on is to boost our confidence. It’s definitely getting better each game. We competed a little more.
“Our girls did a great job of lifting each other up,” Delsolio said. “We have some good hitters on our team but they were just blocking all of our hits. But we can learn a lot from what we saw on the floor.”
Marblehead took the first point of the night but Winthrop responded with a seven-point run to jump out to a 7-1 lead. The Vikings bumped their lead up to 14-5 midway through the first set before Marblehead started to inch back. Later with Michaud serving, the Magicians went on a seven-point run to go ahead 19-17. Marblehead dominated from there to earn the 25-19 win.
The Magicians were locked in from there. Smith started the second set with three aces to help Marblehead jump out to a 5-0 lead and the Magicians stayed in control from there to go ahead 2-0.
Winthrop started the third set by getting out to a 6-2 lead but Marblehead outscored the Vikings 23-7 the rest of the way to cap the 3-0 win.
The win moves the Magicians to 7-4 on the season, just a few wins away from qualifying for the state tournament.
“That’s definitely one of the goals we’ve been working toward,” Miller said. “We have a young team. We graduated an entire starting lineup last year so we have a brand new crop of kids. It takes time to build and get to know a system. Our kids are stepping up in every way possible.”
Both teams are back on the court Friday when Marblehead travels to Saugus (5:30) and Winthrop hosts Peabody (5:30)
“Right now, this week, we’re playing the best ball we’ve played in a really long time,” Miller said. “We ended last week in a tough loss to Masconomet (3-0 loss) and we all said we’re not playing well. The kids have worked tremendously hard the past three days of practice. That effort showed (Wednesday).”