> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Hollis Brookline fights off Bedford to win fourth straight D1 girls volleyball title - URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/hollis-brookline-fights-off-bedford-to-win-fourth-straight-d1-girls-volleyball-title/ - Published: 2018-11-04T20:31:47.000Z - Updated: 2018-11-04T20:31:47.000Z - Description: DERRY – The Hollis Brookline High School girls volleyball team entered the season with high expectations. After winning three straight championships, and with their core returning for one more go-round, why wouldn’t the Cavaliers be primed for another title run. For most of the year, HB tried to fig - Author: Joe Marchilena - Tags: Division I, Bedford, championship, girls volleyball, Hollis Brookline, slider, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44 DERRY – The Hollis Brookline High School girls volleyball team entered the season with high expectations. After winning three straight championships, and with their core returning for one more go-round, why wouldn’t the Cavaliers be primed for another title run. For most of the year, HB tried to fight off thoughts of another title, but on Saturday, the goal was right in front of the Cavs. No. 1 HB dominated the first set against No. 6 Bedford and held off the Bulldogs enough over the next three to take a 3-1 win in the Division I championship match at Pinkerton Academy. Scores were 25-10, 25-17, 18-25 and 25-12. “I’m so proud of this team,” HB senior Maddie Norris said. “You never know, every year, it’s a different vibe with a team. We had this expectation that we had to come out stronger than last season, and that doesn’t always happen. We struggled a lot with sickness and injuries. We’ve been resetting every practice. We did a really good job focusing on our game and not worrying about any outside factors.” Norris finished with 27 kills, 14 digs and three aces while Elizabeth Atkinson added 12 kills and Kaleigh Whalen had nine kills and 17 digs. Kyra Belden had 47 assists while Sammie Sheppard had 17 digs and Ashley Burtt had four blocks for HB (21-0). The win was the 54th in a row for the Cavs. “We take nothing for granted, including this,” HB coach Becky Balfour said. “Bedford is a sixth-place team who knocked out two higher seeds before us. We knew we’d have to deal with that. In the fourth set, we were back to our usual selves. “We have Liz Atkinson, Maddie Norris, Kyra Belden and Natalie Cook. Those are four seniors who have been here since freshmen year. I don’t know how many players have done that, certainly not in Division I. That had a lot to do with it, with their being poised.” The Cavs showed that in the first set, rolling to a 25-10 win over Bedford (17-5), in which the Bulldogs looked to be overcome with the moment. “I’ve been here as a player, and now I’ve been here as a coach, I can’t show any nerves, because then that will trickle down to them,” Bedford coach Anna McGann said. “It’s a huge stage and a lot of people, and you are going to get nervous. We got that out of our system in the first set, and then we battled the rest of the way.” The Bulldogs responded in the second set, getting out to an early lead and holding it until HB came back to go up 12-11 and force Bedford to take a timeout. The Cavs continued to roll in the second set to take a 2-0 lead. HB looked like it would finish the match in three, going up 13-7 before Bedford turned things around. With Caleigh O’Connell serving, Bedford rattled off nine points in a row to take a 16-13 lead, and behind the blocking of Ramou Taal and Emily Adams, the Bulldogs extend their season by one more set. “That was my team,” McGann said. “That was the team I’ve seen the last few weeks and in the postseason. That was the team I see in practice. Sometimes you just have hiccups in a big setting like this and they have a great team. This was the place we wanted to be in.” It was a response that HB expected to see in the final. “They turned around from set one and slowly started picking it up, blocking our hitters and they hung right in there,” Balfour said. “They played really well and we kind of let up a little bit. We had moments when we’d start to surge and then we kind of stalled a little bit. Bedford wanted to win and they played hard.” The Cavs took an early lead in the first set, and while at times it felt like Bedford could pick up momentum, HB found ways to hang on to it. Norris served six straight points as the Cavs went up 14-7 on the way to the win. “They have really good blockers as a team and we had a hard time putting the ball away,” Norris said of the third set. “I think going into the fourth set, we focused on our game and didn’t worry about anything else.”