Bishop Guertin girls volleyball sweeps Spaulding to reach D1 final (video)

DERRY - Abby Rosen sometimes can't believe how far her Bishop Guertin High School girls volleyball team has come in just a year.

The Cardinals finished last year with a 6-12 record in the regular season and lost in the first round of the tournament.

This season, No. 6 Bishop Guertin flipped its record, going 12-6, and after Thursday's 3-0 win over No. 2 Spaulding in the Division I semifinals at Pinkerton Academy, the Cardinals are headed to the championship game for the first time since 2006.

"I can't even explain in words," Rosen said. "Every day I wake up and I'm in awe and I'm so proud of them. As a coach, you have no control in the moment, you do your best to prepare them, but when it comes down to it, it was all them. They worked hard and believed in themselves."

Bishop Guertin (15-6) had to come back in all three games, winning by scores of 25-23, 25-18 and 25-22. That included the third game, where Spaulding (18-3) took a 22-21 lead, but the Cardinals won the final four points to close out the match.

"I think we've come so far," Bishop Guertin junior Jenna McCormack said. "We've worked unbelievably hard. Over the summer, almost everyone was at the gym and we did conditioning. We had to work for every point that we got. We were playing smart and our defense was good. Those rallies were some of the longest rallies I've played and you had to be mentally tough."

Bishop Guertin got solid game from its front line, as Margaret Richardson had seven kills and five blocks, Mackenzie Sweeney had seven blocks and five kills and Jill Rabasco also played well. Lexie Cabray also had 10 kills and 16 digs while McCormack had 35 assists.

"We put a lot of work into preparing for this match," Rosen said. "We have a couple of strong frontline players and we've been working with them all year on movement and reading and just playing smart volleyball and they executed that (Thursday). If that gave them trouble, then we succeeded."

Brooke Creteau led Spaulding with 12 kills and seven more from Alie Vaillancourt added seven kills while Cassandra Ford had 33 digs and Olivia Noonan chipped in with 28 assists.

The Red Raiders grabbed an early lead in the first game, but Bishop Guertin hung around, keeping Spaulding from grabbing too much momentum. When it looked like the Raiders were after going up 17-13, Rosen tried to call a timeout.

The official closest to the bench shook his head, but the Spaulding benched thought it had been called, and the players ran off the court. After a brief discussion, the officials award a point to Bishop Guertin and the Cardinals won seven of the next eight points to grab the lead and eventually won the game 25-23.

Spaulding again held the lead early in the second game, but Bishop Guertin came back, taking 13 of 19 points to lead 16-9. The Cardinals held on for a seven-point win.

The Cardinals got out to a 4-1 lead in Game 3, but Spaulding rallied to tie it 5-5, and neither team could get ahead by more than two or three points.

The Raiders went up 20-17, but Bishop Guertin stormed back again, going on a 7-2 run to win the match and advance to the final.

It's Bishop Guertin's first championship appearance since 2006, when the Cardinals lost to Salem in their only trip to the final. They'll be facing No. 4 Hollis Brookline, which knocked off No. 1 Merrimack, in the title match Saturday at 7 p.m. at Pinkerton Academy.