Girls Volleyball

Girls Win Fourth Set by Ten Points to End the Game

After winning the first two of three competitive sets, Andover Girls Volleyball ran the board in the fourth set, winning by ten points and defeating Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH), shifting the team’s season record to 3-2.

Brooke Fleming ’20 said, “We started off a little rough in the beginning… It was a long bus ride so a lot of us were pretty tired and it took us a while to actually get into the game but once we did, everyone was really fired up and we worked out a few of the kinks with miscommunication.”

Although Andover lost the third set, the team tested its depth for a potential championship run.

Head Coach Clyfe Beckwith said, “In the third set, I stirred up the line-up to get more players playing time and much needed experience for the end of the season when we rely on everyone of 13 players deep.”

In the fourth and final set, Andover dug deep and established a dominating lead, eventually winning by a ten-point margin.

Commending Coach Beckwith’s style, Co-Captain Serena Liu ’19 said, “Clyfe encourages us to play every ball like it is the last point.”

According to Fleming, the turning point against NMH came when Andover broke the serve of its opponent’s best servers.

“They had two very strong servers on their team… and they both had very nice deep float serves. They were really hard to get good passes on… At a few points in the set they would get a lot of points, like five in a row, which doesn’t seem like that much but it puts a big dent in the game,” said Fleming.

Andover’s defense played a big role in breaking NMH’s serving streaks, according to Liu.

“We were really able to play at the front of the net and being able to block the hits from the other side and keeping it off the net was really important for our defense,” said Liu.

Andover will be hosting Choate Rosemary Hall this Saturday.