FILE PHOTO
Mary O’Brien (10) tries to rally her teammates, from left, Steph Bona, Joie Dillon, Molly Camelo, Sam Mancinelli and Jennie Meagher, during the fifth set.
By KATIE MORRISON
I haven’t seen a whole lot of competitive volleyball. My high school didn’t offer the sport, so the only exposure I had to it prior to covering North Shore high school sports was on TV during the Olympics.
But those are professionals who devote their lives to the sport. Volleyball in high school is obviously something completely different.
I’d never seen a volleyball match like the one I saw Tuesday night between Bishop Fenwick and Notre Dame Academy. With the amount of disparity in the Northeastern Conference, it’s kind of rare to see a five-set match during the regular season, so even the most back-and-forth matches I’d seen were usually over in three sets, maybe four.
The Division 2 state semifinal between Fenwick and Notre Dame was something else. There’s nothing quite like a good volleyball match. The action is constant, yet there’s a small window after each point to celebrate, which makes it a lot of fun to watch.
Maybe part of it was the intensity of the crowd. Maybe it was the importance of the game. But every point felt absolutely critical for each team from the very first. The Fenwick players fist-pumped and cheered every time a ball fell in between Cougars players; and stayed energetic and positive, even after Notre Dame would go on long runs or take the lead.
The two teams looked so evenly matched that every set felt like it could go either way. Both team’s servers were nothing short of automatic; there were just a few serving errors over the course of 205 points, which is pretty impressive.
And each point was a battle.
There were several times when someone such as Fenwick’s Molly Camelo or Steph Bona would spike a shot that looked completely unreturnable and the Fenwick crowd (which turned out in huge numbers) cheered, thinking the Crusaders won the point.
But one of the Notre Dame back line players would pull off some ridiculous diving play and send the ball back over.
To Fenwick’s credit, the players never got caught flat-footed and never celebrated too early, and the Crusaders pulled off their fair share of improbable plays to keep volleys alive.
It was also impressive to see the Fenwick girls play to their strengths and excel at their roles. Fenwick coach Adam DeBaggis said that Camelo and Bona are the team’s “closers.”
“If they were Major League Baseball players, they’d come in in the ninth,” said DeBaggis.
And those girls, along with Notre Dame’s Kathryn Howley, made some incredible plays. But what was really impressive was the strategy they used. A lot of times, teams are inexperienced and just trying to get the ball over and inbounds. But the Crusaders and Cougars both saw openings and rather than slamming down hard spikes every time they got the chance, they read the situation and adjusted accordingly.
One in-game moment that stands out is when Camelo had rifled a few hard shots right at the Cougars’ defense, which managed to keep the volley alive each time. So Sam Mancinelli set up Camelo, and Camelo just barely tipped the ball over, forcing the defense to scramble. It was like when a tennis player’s opponent is playing too far back, so they just tip it over the net. The play worked, and Fenwick won the point.
Another time, Joie Dillon went up for a kill, and rather than slamming the ball toward the center and hoping that Notre Dame couldn’t react quick enough, Dillon skimmed the ball across the net, from left to right, and totally faked out the Cougars defense.
Every set was exciting, but the fifth set was heart-stopping. Fenwick was carrying all of the momentum from winning the fourth set, and that momentum helped it build a 12-5 lead in the fifth set.
If you’re just reading tweets from the game or hearing about it second-hand, it might seem like the Crusaders unraveled and blew a big lead. But the thing is … they didn’t make many mistakes. It wasn’t a matter of folding under the pressure or making physical errors. It was simply a shift of momentum. Notre Dame went on a run, and Fenwick couldn’t stop the bleeding.
But overall, the battle for a spot in the state final was one of, if not the most exciting game I’ve been to all year.
Katie Morrison can be reached at [email protected].