LYNNFIELD — It’s official.
The Morelli twins are taking their talents to the Hamilton College Continentals and the New England Small College Athletic Conference this fall.
Melissa “Missy” Morelli intends to continue her volleyball career, while Victoria “Tori” Morelli plans to play soccer.
Both applied early decision and learned they had been admitted to the prestigious school in mid-December.
“We were here in the gym and were trying to hide it from coach (Peter Bocchino) when it got to be 8 o’clock and the notices went out,” said Missy. “Once we knew, it was impossible to hide it and everyone was so excited and celebrating with us.”
Both girls knew right away on their first visit to the Clinton, N.Y., campus that Hamilton was their top choice.
“The school was so welcoming so we knew immediately that we wanted to go there,” said Tori. “I felt that it had the right mix of athletics and academics, so that even if soccer didn’t work out for me, I still felt that the academics made it the right school.”
Both girls had outstanding senior campaigns this past fall for the Pioneers and are currently wrapping up their four-year varsity careers for the basketball team, which broke a 17-year losing streak to Masconomet last Friday night.
Missy helped lead the volleyball Pioneers to the top seed in the Division 2 North championship game after a perfect 20-0 season in which the team never dropped a set. Unfortunately, their luck ran out against Danvers, which swept the Pioneers to win the title.
At the epicenter of the Pioneers’ epic run was Morelli. Already the career leader in assists, Morelli also set new marks for career kills and aces. Morelli is an anomaly in a game where players are usually specialists who rarely are asked to perform multiple roles. She was named to the Globe and Herald All-Scholastic teams and was the Cape Ann League Player of the Year. She was also named to the Massachusetts State Volleyball Coaches Association Division 2 All-State team and received American Volleyball Coaches Association Region 1 honors.
On the vast majority of teams, you are either a hitter racking up crazy kill numbers or a setter — a ball handler whose sole responsibility is to run the offense.
Not so with Morelli. A four-year starter, she has spent her entire high school career setting and hitting.
“She has to share, as most programs run one setter on the court at all times and they get double the number of assists that Melissa gets,” said Lynnfield volleyball coach Brent Ashley. “And the fact that she spends that much time sharing, limits the number of kill opportunities she has.The fact that she can double-double in every game setting and getting kills is incredible. Her numbers don’t begin to tell the story.”
Tori, a three-year starter on the girls soccer team at center-midfield, helped lead the Pioneers to a 13-2-3 record and the No. 2 seed in the Division 3 North tournament. The Pioneers started slowly at 0-2-1, but finished the season with a 15-game unbeaten streak only to be upended by Pentucket in the first round.
“I think we may have not been prepared and just did not play the way we know we can,” said Morelli, who was named to the CAL First Team All-Star team.
Tori said she first started thinking about Hamilton after its coach saw her play at a club tournament in the offseason.
“NESCAC is a high-level league and when the coach reached out to me, I gained confidence that I could play at that level, so that was very helpful,” she said.
Both girls are top students and carry challenging course loads. Each was inducted into the National Honor Society as juniors and this year are taking AP statistics, economics, Spanish, psychology and English along with honors physics. Tori owns family bragging rights when it comes to class rank; going into senior year, she was 10th, while Missy is No. 17.
Missy has not yet decided on a major, while Tori says she is leaning toward economics.
The twins, who say they will not room together, said they were not certain what they would do had one been accepted and the other one denied.
“When we started looking at the same schools, we knew there was a possibility that we might not both get in, but I think, while we wanted to go together, if it came down to that, we would not want to hold each other back,” Tori said.