Mounties suffer first Div. I defeat

Coventry scores 56 of match’s final 80 points to win in four games

WOONSOCKET— Even though his team took the opening game from Division I powerhouse Coventry and was on the precipice of winning the second game Monday night, Mount St. Charles girls volleyball coach Josh D’Abate could tell his team wasn’t playing like the squad that swept Cumberland last week.

“We did not come to play tonight. To put it honestly, we didn’t have it tonight,” D’Abate said. “Sometimes you just have a bad game. In warm-ups we looked slow. Even if you look at the first game, we played poorly early and then we played better. We just didn’t come to play tonight.”

Coventry scored the final six points of the second game to erase a three-point deficit and the undefeated Oakers never looked back. Coventry built a lead as big as 11 points in the third game and scored seven of the first eight points in the final game to leave Woonsocket with a second valuable road win against a Blackstone Valley opponent.

Coventry setter Paige Greenwood had 35 assists, four aces and two kills, while right-side hitter Lydia Clifford has 12 kills, 11 digs and two blocks in a 19-25, 25-22, 25-14, 25-10 road victory.

“From what I saw, we started serving a lot more aggressively,” Coventry coach Jill Krebs said. “In that second game we missed six serves and we did that against Cumberland, too. We didn’t miss a serve in the third and fourth game, so that was a big difference. We also started playing a little defense, which was nice to see.”

Mount St. Charles (2-1 Division I) came into the season knowing the key to competing for a state title was passing because the Mounties aren’t the biggest team in the division and they’re also replacing an All-State setter in Alex Miller.

The Mounties, after falling behind 5-1 in the opening game, passed well for most of the next two games. Mount scored 46 of the match’s next 83 points to win the opening game and build a 22-19 advantage in the second game. Coventry outside hitter Meagan Willett delivered a kill to spark a 6-0 run to end the game.

“You fight all the way through the first game and the second and to lose it the way we did, now you’re in defensive mode,” D’Abate said. “We kind of asked ourselves what do we have to do to fix it? Instead, we should’ve continued to do what we do, which is pass the ball in serve-receive, run our offense through the middles and get the outsides involved.”

Coventry (3-0 Division I) figured to be at a big disadvantage in the middle because the Mounties boast an AllState hitter in Haley McCreight and a talented athlete in Paige Fitzpatrick. But, Krebs was pleased with the way junior Rylee Campbell and senior Cara Turner played over the final two games.

“We have the tools to play this way, but it’s like a puzzle where we haven’t put the corners in yet,” Krebs said. “Our middles played really well. They don’t usually get set a lot because we go to the outside. I also wish we could get Meagan Willett more involved in the offense.”

After Coventry raced out to a 5-1 lead thanks to kills from Clifford and Willett, the Mounties played their best volleyball of the evening to fight back and win the opening game. Led by defensive backbone Maggie Bouckaert, the Mounties ran a quick offense that frustrated the Oakers.

Mount went on a 5-1 run to grab an advantage it would never relinquish. Coventry led the second game 13-10 when McCreight, Isa Miller and the Mounties scored 13 of the next 19 points to grab a 22-19 lead.

But, that’s when the match changed. The Oakers took advantage of numerous servereceive errors to score the final six points of the game and they ended up outscoring the hosts 56-24 to end the match.

“The most frustrating thing is we didn’t move well,” D’Abate said. “They had six girls flying around like a hornet’s nest. We had six girls where it was like Winnie the Pooh look at the honey pot. It’s frustrating because I know we’re a better team than we showed tonight.

“I told the girls that it starts with me because I obviously didn’t get them ready to play. Our leadership has never been an issue, but tonight we just didn’t have it.”