Alyssa Gu ’28 spikes the ball onto Andover High’s side of the court.
9/8 – Andover: 1, Andover High: 3
On Tuesday, Girls Volleyball faced Andover High School (Andover High) in a scrimmage. While the score indicates that the teams battled over a total of four sets, after a discussion among coaches, they played a fifth set to 15 points, rather than 21, to test out different lineups.
Facing a strong Andover High squad known for its aggressive offense, Girls Volleyball learned to adjust, maintain high team morale, and tactically set up kills to avoid long rallies. Elsa Wang ’30 described a standout moment from the match, highlighting a teammate’s strong performance under pressure.
“A really good rally in the game was when Lexi Arias ’28 was having a serving streak. It was really long, she kept the team going even when the other team called for a timeout. She still aced it after the timeout and it was really fun to watch,” said Wang.
The team held its composure and maintained pressure on the opponents while bouncing back quickly after each lost point. Kailynn Zheng PG’27 reflected on the team’s mindset, noting that the squad stayed level-headed regardless of what happened on the court.
“Our mentality was really good at every point. No matter what happened, no one immediately felt down because we lost the point or someone messed up. We converted, had a great mindset, and moved on to the next point really quickly,” said Zheng.
Although the team maintained a positive mentality, the players are still getting to know each other and their styles of play. Wang described the team’s energy and effort to strengthen team chemistry.
“As a team, we’re really energetic and high-spirited, but something we need to work on is our chemistry, because not everyone knows each other. We’re working on that, and we’ll get better in the next few games,” said Wang.
In order to strengthen bonds among the players, the team focused on communication during practices. Alessandre Ruys ’28 described the team’s scrimmaging and communication.
“We’ve done a lot of six versus six and scrimmaging within the team, which helped with the communication we had and the connection we have as a team,” said Ruys.
On offense, the team found success in adjusting its speed of play and applying techniques learned in practice to slow or speed up the game. Zheng highlighted Andover’s faster offensive strategy, as well as a standout performance from the team’s middle.
“Shoutout to Zaeemah Keshinro ’29. She took all the corrections and kind of tried to go for every ball or hit every ball. Her blocking was good too. We worked on a faster tempo offense and setting the ball lower. That worked out very well in times that we needed because the other side’s block just didn’t respond fast enough, and we got a kill,” said Zheng.
Girls Volleyball will compete in its first regular season match at home against Dana Hall on Friday.
