Salem girls volleyball overcomes slow start to hand Concord first loss (video)

SALEM - The Salem High School girls volleyball team is at its best when its playing aggressive and worrying about what it can control on the Blue Devils' side of the net.

No surprise then that when Salem wasn't focused on that in the first game of Monday's match against Concord, the Blue Devils fell behind.

Salem was able to get its game going from the start of the second game and held off the Crimson Tide in each of the final three games to win 3-1, handing Concord its first loss of the season. Scores were 19-25, 25-19, 25-20 and 25-22.

"That first game, we came out really flat and then started playing like we should," Salem coach John Roemer said. "The only thing we said was that we’ve got to pick it up. We’ve got to be more aggressive, we’ve got to talk more, we’ve got to do the things we can do. We were giving up everything. It was what we had to do ourselves."

The Blue Devils (5-1) responded in the second game, taking control behind the serving of Alyssa Collette, Natasha Vallis and Lauren McCloskey to go up 20-7 before Concord (6-1) started chipping away. But Salem had enough left to hold on to win the game and even things up before winning the final two.

Nancy Pin led the Blue Devils with 14 kills and four aces while Vallis added 12 kills and Leah Kurr had 34 assists. Collette finished with 11 digs and 11 service points and Taylor Vartanian had three blocks.

It was the second match in a row that Salem has handed a team its first loss of the season, as the Blue Devils knocked off Pinkerton in a five-game match last Friday.

"It was probably a little bit (of hangover from the win over Pinkerton) and not knowing what Concord was going to have," Roemer said. "We had a big rivalry match (against Pinkerton), and I think they took this one a little lighter than they should have."

Concord got 15 kills and 15 digs from Maria Wimpey and Abigail Rochette added 31 assists.

"They came out a lot stronger (in the second game) and we knew they would," Concord coach Jonathan Flower said. "John always puts together a good fight. We knew that. My team is fairly inexperienced. We lost a lot of people.

"Stuff started coming at them hard and we started standing up on our passes, which meant they weren’t going to the places they needed to go. Then everything kind of fell from there and we knew they were going to be tough."

The Crimson Tide came back in the second game, winning 10 straight points to pull within three, 21-18, but Salem was able to hold on for the win. The Blue Devils also led throughout Game 3, but Concord kept it closer, tying it at 18 before the Blue Devils won five points in a row.

Salem got out to a 16-10 lead in the fourth game before Concord took a timeout and cut the lead down to four. But the Blue Devils responded, taking four of the next five points to go up 21-14.

The Tide rallied again, getting within two, 22-20, before a timeout by Salem. Concord won the first point after the break, but Salem regrouped and finished off the match.

"It shows we can pick up a game," Roemer said of being able to hold on in the final game. "We keep working at it. We had four or five balls in the net, but we still wanted to go aggressive, keep swinging and keep playing. We’re going to go aggressive and we’re going to play that way."