PEABODY — In one of its closest matches of the season Tuesday evening, the Peabody volleyball team outlasted Masconomet to notch a 3-1 victory at home in a Northeastern Conference battle. The Tanners won by set scores of 25-21, 25-18, 20-25, 25-21.
“It was just a great match, it was truly back-and-forth the whole way,” said Peabody coach Lisa Keene. “Masconomet is obviously such a good team and they’ve gotten stronger over the course of the year, so we really had to bring our best and work hard for this one.”
Michaela Alperen had a strong night at the service line with 16 service points, while Abby Bettencourt had 22 assists and three aces. Sarah Broughton and Isabel Bettencourt added nine kills apiece. Defensively, Broughton, Isabel Bettencourt, Sophia Hollingshed, Krissy Cardello and Maggie Bena all contributed to the win.
After taking the first two sets in close fashion, Peabody knew it couldn’t let its foot off the gas pedal. And even though the Tanners didn’t let up and kept pushing in the third set, Masconomet was still able to rally enough times to steal the set and keep the match alive.
“I actually still felt pretty good after that third set because we had the home-court advantage and we were playing well, but we had too many errors and missed hits that gave the set away,” said Keene. “We knew we just needed to clean things up in the fourth set.”
The fourth set was another back-and-forth affair, but this time it was the Tanners who came up with rallies at critical moments to wrap up the set and take home the victory.
“We weren’t going to let it get to a fifth set, because that’s something we’ve done a couple of times this year and we didn’t want that,” said Keene. “We have definitely learned from our mistakes throughout the season and we knew what we needed to do to turn things around and pull out the win.”
As the Tanners come down the home stretch of the season, they are looking to end things with some positive momentum. Peabody will play games against Swampscott and Beverly (who Peabody beat in five sets on March 23) this week before closing out the season Monday afternoon against perennial powerhouse Danvers.
“It’s obviously a tough schedule to close things out, but this is how you want to end a season,” said Keene. “You want to go up against the teams that gave you the most challenge during the season, and these teams are it. Masco beat us 3-0 the first time around, we went five sets with Beverly and we went four sets with Danvers, who is the team to beat right now. Those are the teams you want to play.”
Peabody (7-3) travels to Swampscott Thursday (5:30).
