Hollis Brookline, Concord girls volleyball collide in D1 championship

The Hollis Brookline High School girls volleyball team had just crossed the halfway point of the regular season when it hit a rough stretch.

The Cavaliers stared the last week of September with back-to-back losses on the road to Bishop Guertin and Concord, dropping both matches in four games.

Despite the setbacks, Becky Balfour told her team, which had won its second Division I title last year, to keep it's collective eyes on what really mattered - the postseason.

"Our loss to Concord earlier, our loss to Spaulding, our loss to BG, they each showed us things that we needed to do," Balfour said. "We learned a lot from those losses. We look at those losses that we're learning a lot from. We won last year and we have a big target on our back. Everybody wants to get Hollis Brookline. But we also learned from those."

HB (18-3) hasn't lost since that defeat against the Crimson Tide (18-2). The Cavs will get a chance at redemption, as No. 4 HB will take on No. 2 Concord at 5 p.m. Saturday in the Division I championship at Pinkerton Academy. The Division II title will follow at 7 p.m., with No. 1 Windham facing No. 3 Somersworth.

Balfour seems some similarities between this year's title match and last year. A season ago, the Cavs were the higher seed, but lost during the regular season in four games to Bishop Guertin. This year, while Concord is the higher seed, the Tide handed HB a loss in four.

Concord comes in with one of the top middle hitters in the division in senior Lauren Hatch, and Tide coach Jonathan Flowers believes that could be a matchup that plays into his team's favor.

"(HB) has a strong outside presence, they don't have much in the middle, and that's pretty much our strength," he said. "They can hit from both sides. We're going to have to adjust our defense to that a little bit."

While much of Concord's offense runs through Hatch, the Cavs have a handful of players on the outside, led by sophomores Maddie Norris and Elizabeth Atkinson, anyone one of whom can lift the team.

"Maddie Norris was hitting well, but then they also had to worry about Elizabeth (Atkinson), and then (Taylor Hamel) is hitting out of the back row," Balfour said after Wednesday's semifinal win over Exeter. "It wasn't only one person getting the ball."

Experience could play a factor as well, as HB has nine players who were on last year's roster, a handful of whom played in last year's title match. Concord hadn't been to the semifinals before Wednesday since 2005, when the Tide won Class L.

But that lack of experience wasn't a factor for Concord against Dover in the final four.

"We were more nervous about some regular season games and the Salem game (in the quarterfinals)," Flowers said. "This is the first time we've been to the semis in 11 years and it was almost like we'd already accomplished something that we wanted to achieve. Now we're here and let's just enjoy."