Spaulding girls volleyball pulls off surprise sweep of Bishop Guertin
George Pendleton knows how quickly a two-game lead can unravel. So with the Spaulding High School girls volleyball team on the verge of missing out on a sweep against Bishop Guertin, the Red Raiders head coach called a timeout.
NASHUA - George Pendleton knows how quickly a two-game lead can unravel.
So with the Spaulding High School girls volleyball team on the verge of missing out on a sweep against Bishop Guertin, the Red Raiders head coach called a timeout.
With Spaudling down 24-23, Pendleton reminded what potentially could be at stake, and the Raiders won the next three points to surprise the Cardinals, taking over sole possession of second place in Division I. Game scorers were 25-12, 25-20 and 26-24.
Coming off a five-set loss to Goffstown last Friday, in which Spaulding led 2-0 and couldn't close out the Grizzlies, Pendleton wanted to see his girls finish off a quality opponent. But he had no idea it would go the way it did.
"We just went on a run," Pendleton said of the Game 1 win. "We executed what we needed to do. We took them by surprise and we were able to score a bunch of points.
"We wanted to push getting it in three games. We didn't do it Friday night when we played. We were ahead in the third game and we didn't finish it. We didn't take it and (Monday) we really pushed hard to get the finish."
Leah Creteau led Spaulding (14-2) with 12 kills and Hannah Douglas added 11 kills in the win, while Olivia Noonan chipped in with 32 assists.
The Cardinals (13-3), who saw their seven-match win streak snapped, got seven kills and 10 digs from Meagan Morelli while Jenna McCormack had 26 assists, nine digs and two aces. Mariana Gomez had 13 digs and four kills and Jillian Rabasco had nine kills.
"We figured them out and turned it on too late," Bishop Guertin coach Abby Savard said. "They're a solid team. They've got shots, they've got defense, they've got servers. I think we played scared and we did not come out playing like we were tied for second place with them."
Bishop Guertin took a 5-4 lead in Game 1, but Spaulding went on a run after that, taking six straight points and 17 of 21 overall to go up 21-9.
"Our game plan worked as we'd hope it would," Pendleton said. "We knew they tipped a lot of balls, and we were going to take that away. The first couple of games, we really made them work at what they did and changed the way they do things.
"We had experienced it last year and didn't pick it up in the semifinals against them, so we knew that we had to get better at what we were doing. We worked on that and that's what we looked to do, to pick up their tips and not let them do stuff, to take them out of their game."
The Raiders stormed out in the second game, taking a 10-3 lead before the Cardinals were able to close the gap, but another run by Spaulding put the Raiders up 18-9.
This time, Bishop Guertin wasn't done, going on an 8-3 run to get within four points, 21-17, but the Cardinals couldn't get any closer.
"We were just overthinking it," Savard said. "We got inside our own heads and made a ton of our own mistakes. In that third game, we just played. We played like we know how to."
The Cardinals took an early lead in the third game - their first since early in Game 1 - but Spaulding went on a run again to take control and eventually went up 19-14. After a timeout, Bishop Guertin cut the lead to one, forcing the Raiders to use a timeout of their own, and the two sides battled back and forth.
Bishop Guertin pulled ahead 24-23 when Pendleton used another timeout, and a couple of miscues by the Cardinals let Spaulding take control of the game and win the match.
