STOUGHTON, Mass. — For the first two sets of Wednesday’s Division 2 preliminary round, the Stoughton volleyball team couldn’t find its footing, and the Black Knights couldn’t get out of their own way.
But in the last two sets, Stoughton couldn’t do anything wrong.
Buoyed by incredible starts to the third and fourth sets, the 27th-seeded Black Knights earned a 3-1 (25-17, 17-25, 25-6, 25-9) win over #38 Holyoke to advance in the state tournament.
Although Stoughton got a win in the first set, they didn’t make it easy on themselves. A kill from sophomore Reagan Lewis (18 kills) pushed the hosts’ lead to eight at 16-8 but mistakes and unforced errors saw that lead shrink to three before Stoughton closed it out with a 5-0 run.
The unforced errors and passing mistakes carried over to the second set, and even with Stoughton staying close with the visiting Purple Knights for the majority of the set, Holyoke middle Rhina Cortes Rodriguez proved to be too much and the visitors finished the set with an 11-1 run to even the match.
That clearly served as a wake-up call for Stoughton. Of the next 65 points between the final two sets, the Black Knights won 50 of them.
“We talk about it all the time, it feels like we have to get down a little before we really turn it on,” said Stoughton head coach Felicia Baptista. “But they are really driven by being the underdogs so after they won that second set, we kind of woke up and just started communicating better.
“I felt like we were playing down for the first two sets and letting them feed off of our errors. Once we cleaned up those mistakes, we got it going.”
It all started with the serving of sophomore Angelina Barry. who had three aces and two more serves that weren’t returned to set the tone. Lewis added three early kills and a 9-0 start prompted a timeout from Holyoke.
Lewis had a team-high 18 kills, filling in as an outside hitter for the Knights, who were without their starting two outsides in juniors Maya Ashu and Annalia Eschleman.
“She’s been awesome for us because she can play anywhere in the front row,” Baptista said. “We can put her in the middle, we can put her at the outside. And tonight she really stepped up as an underclassman when we needed her most with our two starting outsides out hurt.”
But the break couldn’t deter Barry and the Black Knights. Lewis had back-to-back kills off sets from Ella Holden, senior Jessie Queeney followed a kill with a big block at the net, Barry landed another ace, and Queeney dropped in a roll shot to push the run to 16-0 to start the third set.
A hitting mistake out of Holyoke’s second time finally ended Stoughton’s run but Lewis restored momentum for the hosts with a pair of kills, the latter coming off a pass from senior Patrik Oliveira and a set from freshman Natalia Borges, who then landed three straight aces to close out the third, 25-6.
It was unlikely that Stoughton could have a better start to the fourth set than it did in the third with a 16-0 run, but the Black Knights managed to top it.
This time it was Holden at the helm, serving Stoughton to an incredible 20-0 run to essentially run away with the win. Holden had three aces early on, a pair of other strong serves batted around before being knocked out, Queeney had a block kill, and Lewis had two kills for a quick 11-0 run.
Oliveira landed a back row kill, Holden dropped in another ace, and even a pass from Queeney found a hole in the defense to make it 17-0. Back-to-back cross court kills from Queeney and Lewis made it 20-0 before a hitting error got the Purple Knights on the board. Despite a little run from the visitors, senior Mia Marangos got a big block on a free ball and junior Alyssa Edwards smashed a kill for the final point to clinch the match.
“This is huge to host and win a playoff game,” Baptista said. “We always have a big program and I feel like it’s continuing to grow because we’re doing more youth programs so to be able to host this game and have the community out supporting is huge to help continue to grow.”
Stoughton volleyball (9-10) is set to travel to #6 Melrose on Friday with a 6:30 start for an MIAA Division 2 First Round matchup.