WILBRAHAM — Minnechaug Regional High School used its superior height to eliminate Athol High School, 3-0, Tuesday from the MIAA West Division I Volleyball Tournament.
With multiple players more than 6 feet tall, specifically John Cowles, who stands at 6-foot-8, the Falcons swept Athol in the quarterfinal round. Minnechaug took Game 1, 25-18, Game 2, 25-17, and Game 3, 25-22.
“When you’ve got a 6-8 kid on the other side of the net, you just really learn to put the ball either around their block or knock it off their fingers,” said Athol senior Jordan Carrasquillo. “If you look, Nick Casella did that a lot throughout the day. He really played off the block. … They came out strong and that was something we just had to realize from the start.”
With the loss, the Red Raiders’ season comes to a close while Minnechaug advances to the semifinals, where it will face Agawam High School.
In Tuesday’s match, Athol’s Nick Casella, a role player, outperformed expectations, leading the team with 11 kills. However, Cowles used his height to overpower the Red Raiders, producing 14 kills. On multiple occasions, Cowles jumped at the line and spiked the ball straight down into Athol’s court without giving the Red Raiders a chance to react.
“John is a good hitter and they’ve got some other good hitters,” said Athol coach Sean MacDonald. “It was a matter of, when we put pressure on them, it makes it hard to set their guys well. But then we gave them some easy balls. They set it up and that’s just really, really hard to defend when they can set them whatever way they want.”
After starting Game 1 with a 1-0 lead, the Red Raiders’ only other lead came in Game 3 when the team went up 4-3 on an errant serve by Minnechaug’s Timothy Budrow. The Red Raiders built their lead up to six, 15-9, but faltered late. The Red Raiders saw their lead dwindle to four at 21-17, then gave up five straight points to give it up at 22-21.
A kill by Casella just within the left line tied the game, but a double hit by Colby Soltysik and two straight midcourt kills from Cowles gave Minnechaug the 25-22 win and sweep.
“A couple of points we were so focused on not making an error, we gave them the ball so easy to the other team that they could kill it,” said MacDonald about Game 3. “There’s a really fine line about being reckless and being aggressive and it’s one you think about after matches a lot. I just think the guys competed hard and played for every point.”
In the first game, the Falcons built leads of 11-4 and 21-15 before the two teams traded points until a 25-18 Falcon win. In the second game, the two teams traded points to start the set. Minnechaug built its largest lead midway through, leading by five, 15-10. Athol pulled back within two, at 15-13, taking advantage of a serving error by Sean Oldread and kills by Justin Blake and Colby Mason. Nursing a 17-14 lead, Minnechaug strung together five straight points to go up 22-14. Then the teams traded points until the Falcons’ eventual 25-17 win.
“I think they knew we came ready to play,” said Carrasquillo. “We had a lot of time to prep for this. We really gave everything our all, they just came out really strong.”
The Red Raiders performed well in the hitting department, giving up only 15 points on errant hits. However, the team did give up 11 points on the serve, versus only three aces.
“I wasn’t so much worried about the serving errors,” said MacDonald. “I was worried about serving in easy. I could live with a couple more serving errors if we could put more pressure on the balls that went in. At times, we didn’t put a lot of pressure on them. It was just too easy for them to run their offense and they’re good. We knew that.”