On Saturday, the Girls Varsity Volleyball team took down a strong Loomis Chaffee with big contributions from Claire Fox ’06. Fox was 16 for 18 on hit attempts and 19 for 23 on serves with 12 kills, eight aces, and one block. Wednesday, Andover went to St. Paul’s where it accumulated another convincing victory with some great play. Loomis Chaffee was undefeated through two games coming into its match with Andover. That all changed very quickly as Andover took three straight sets from Loomis in just 50 minutes. The scores were 30-16, 30-27, and 30-16. The girls started strong in the first set with hard hits and swift defense to put Loomis out of the game early, winning by 14 points. The second set, however, was not quite as easy. Loomis began with a quick rally, hitting harder than in the first set, for a 9-4 lead over a hesitant Andover. Loomis kept that lead until Fox came through later with seven straight serves to bring Andover back to 17-20. Andover then proceeded to chip away at the Loomis squad, eventually pulling even at 27. At 27-27, Fox came up big again and served three straight points to give Andover the set, 30-27. Andover was planning on reaching into its bench for the third set but because of the second set scare, the starters remained on the court to try and finish off their opponents with one last set. Andover accomplished this with relative ease as Fox and Caroline Levin ’06 combined for 15 service points to overwhelm Loomis by a score of 30-16 and give Andover the match. Captain Jackie Price ’06 also had a great game with 10 of 15 hits, four kills, two assists, 12 of 15 serve attempts, and three aces. She was also two for two in block attempts. Sarah Thomas ’06 had 16 hits out of 21 attempts, nine kills, five of six serve attempts, and one ace. The two lowers, Cassidy Carpenter ’08 and Atima Lui ’08 also had good outings. Setter Carpenter finished off the day with 22 assists, one kill, two hits (on two attempts), and four aces. She also connected with 11 of her 13 serves. Lui was five for five in hit attempts, eight for ten in serves, one for two on blocks, and also had three kills, two aces, and one stuff block. Even with a convincing win, there were still some aspects that needed work. Captain Price said, “We did a lot of good things on Saturday. We passed well, served well and we have the ability to be an incredible offensive team. I think we have the talent needed to be the best. Now we just need to work on our consistency and working more as a team. This week at practice we have been working on some tricky offensive plays that will hopefully confuse our opponents.” In the opening set of Wednesday’s game, the girls managed to put forth what Price called “the best volleyball we’ve played as a team so far,” trouncing St. Paul’s by a sizeable margin of victory with some amazing play. In the second set, Beckwith decided to give the second team a chance to gain some experience and mixed them in with the starting rotation. Though it was a closer set than the first, Andover still came out with a decisive win. In the third set, Beckwith started the entire second team, which fought hard, but gave up the set to St. Paul’s. With the starters back on the court for the fourth set, Andover handed St. Paul’s a loss, building its own record to 2-0 for the season.
