In the fourth set against Deerfield, Andover Girls Volleyball’s key player Tiffany Baumann ’16 secured five consecutive comeback points for the team with her powerful serves. Her crucial performance behind the service line led Andover to a 3-1 victory on Saturday.
Andover continued its positive momentum on Wednesday, beating St. Paul’s 3-1 to extend its winning streak to six games and propel its record to 13-1.
On Saturday, Andover opened the game with strong communication and dominated the first set, but Deerfield won the second set to tie the game. In the third set, fierce serves from Baumann and Co-Captain Annette Bell ’16 enabled Andover to emerge with a decisive 25-5 victory. The fourth set brought intense determination from both Deerfield and Andover as the end of the match approached. Another of Bauman’s serves saved the game, allowing Andover to culminate the fourth set with a victory that finalized the overall win.
In addition to Baumann’s serves, Andover’s succeeded in capitalizing on Deerfield’s weak offense.
Darcy Burnham ’18 said, “Deerfield was strange competition because they didn’t have strong offense, but they were able to pick up our hits easier than we thought they would.”
Against St. Paul’s, Andover came out strong and clinched the first five points of the game. However, the team’s energy quickly waned, which pushed the first two sets to be closer than expected and resulted in a 21-25 loss in the third set.
Sewon Park ’17 said, “We already played [St. Paul’s] before, so we were kind of complacent because we didn’t really take them seriously –our main competition is Exeter and Loomis. The first five points were really good, because we were fired up and energetic and focused, but after that, we stopped taking them seriously and assumed it would be that easy for the rest of the game so the energy went down. We weren’t going for everything – we were just kind of playing timidly.”
Baumann added, “We would start off sets in the lead and then, from there, our energy and momentum would go down because I feel that there was nothing to battle for since we were already in the lead. Eventually we would get to the point where they were battling, and we weren’t battling.”
Although Andover emerged unsatisfied with its level of play, its raw talent shone through and spoke to the team’s overall strong capacity for success.
“We never play our best when we play St. Paul’s. We always play very average, which is good considering they are fifth seed in the league, and our average is still good enough to beat them,” said Baumann.
Andover looks to clinch another victory as it faces Governor’s on Friday.
Editor’s Note: Tiffany Baumann ’16 is an Arts Editor for The Phillipian and Sewon Park ’17 is a Commentary Associate for The Phillipian.
