LYNNFIELD — The Lynnfield volleyball team was determined to end the regular season on a high note, and the Pioneers did just that when they took down Cape Ann League rival North Reading 3-0 on Senior Night Wednesday. With the win, which the Pioneers earned by set scores of 25-13, 25-22, 26-24, Lynnfield clinched its third consecutive CAL title.
“North Reading is always a good team and they always battle back, and they always force us to make adjustments,” said Lynnfield coach Brent Ashley. “They run a lot of stuff through their middle hitter Anna Bryk, and we knew they were going to come out swinging with her. We had to adjust around it and the girls did a good job changing things up.”
Prior to the game, the Pioneers honored their group of five seniors — Ava Buonfiglio, Jillian Babine, Daniella Colarusso, Olivia Murphy and Vanessa Torosian — for their contributions to the program over the past four years.
“Their contributions to the program have been huge, and it’s kind of funny because they didn’t get a ton of playing time last year since we were so senior-heavy,” said Ashley. “So these girls had actually never suffered a loss like the one they took against Newburyport (last week), so that was a tough one for them. They wanted to come back and battle for the CAL title, because they didn’t want to share it with anyone else. They wanted to make sure that their number was up on the banner in the gym and leave that legacy behind.”
“Ella (Gizmunt) and Daniella played out of their minds, and we needed it,” said Ashley.
Lynnfield, a self-admittedly slow starting team, actually got off to a fast start in the opening set. The Pioneers rode a strong service game to a 14-4 lead in the early going, but North Reading wasn’t going away that easily. The Hornets battled back to make it 14-10 and put a scare in the Pioneers, but Lynnfield closed the set on an 11-3 run to cruise to a 1-0 lead.
The second set was a different story. After battling through eight ties and nine lead changes, North Reading gained a foothold and went ahead 14-10 — its largest lead of the night at that point. Lynnfield battled back to tie it at 16-16 before taking the lead, eventually stretching the advantage to 23-19 before North Reading called a timeout. The Hornets went on a small run to get back in the set, but once again the Pioneers were able to notch the last few points to earn the set victory.
There was more back-and-forth in the third set, with Lynnfield eventually taking a 17-14 lead and looking like it was going to close things out. But North Reading fought back again, tying the score at 21-21, 22-22 and 23-23 before taking a lead and forcing Lynnfield to set point. But an unforced error by the Hornets tied things at 24-24, and then Lynnfield earned a service point to set up match point. On the next volley, Gizmunt stepped up and slammed a kill to earn the deciding point and send Lynnfield home with a win.
Lynnfield closes the regular season at 9-1 and now awaits its seeding in the upcoming CAL Tournament, which is set to begin Monday.
“We’re feeling pretty good and I’m pretty sure we’re guaranteed to have the No. 1 seed, so I think we’ll play Georgetown Monday,” said Ashley. “We saw them earlier this year and they have decent hitters that we’ll have to be prepared for, so we’ll look at the film and see if we can keep this going.”
