Lincoln finishes season sweep of Northmen
Wodogaza, Lions beat NS for second straight night
LINCOLN — The Lincoln girls volleyball team took six of seven sets from North Smithfield in their meetings on back-to-back nights, but the difference between the two teams wasn’t that big.
The third-place Lions only outscored the Northmen by seven points in their sweep Monday night, and Tuesday night the Northmen, thanks to the play of Madi Wilkes and setter Hope Trowbridge, were in position to win three of the four games in a match play at Lincoln
Middle School.
Lincoln, led by talented senior outside hitter Olivia Wodogaza (12 kills) and libero Lexi Noel (23 digs), solidified its spot in Division II with a 25-18, 20-25, 25-22, 25-21 victory over its neighbor.
“It was very strange to play the same team on two straight nights because you can’t adjust what you want to adjust because you don’t have any time to practice,” Lincoln coach Lyndsey Sweeney said.
“I knew that after Monday it shouldn’t have been as close as it was and it shouldn’t have been this close [Tuesday]. I played my seniors in the first two sets because this was senior day.”
“I don’t remember ever playing a team on back-to-back days,” veteran North Smithfield coach Brian Burnham said. “I told my AD [Matt Tek] that I hope it works out because if you get that victory on the first night, you have a mental advantage going into the second match. Both nights were tight games, but Lincoln comes out swinging pretty hard.”
Lincoln (12-4 Division II) has proven to be the perfect litmus test for the rest of Division II-A because the Lions have been swept by first-place West Warwick and second-place East Greenwich, while they’ve won every match against the rest of the division. They can clinch the No. 3 seed in the playoffs if they beat Johnston to end the regular season.
Sweeney, who assisted Kyle Medeiros on last season’s Division II finalist squad, knows what areas the Lions need to clean up if they want to make another run to Rhode Island College.
“Serve-receive coverage and blocking still need to get better,” Sweeney said. “I know that Olivia and Anna Vygoder can put the ball away, but our passes need to be clean to set our middle. Defense is pretty good and being cleaned up. Serve-receive kind of depends on the day – and I know a lot of coaches struggle with that.”
North Smithfield (5-9 Division II) is currently in sixth place, which would secure a playoff spot. The Northmen dropped their first four matches of the season while they adapted to Burnham’s new system. Trowbridge, who has played every position in the front row in her time at NS, filled a need at setter. Wilkes (12 kills) and sophomore Laura Matchett (seven kills) have shown improvement in the front row.
The Northmen still have winnable matches with Mt. Hope and winless Bay View sandwiching a home game against the undefeated Wizards.
“Hope’s play a lot of positions for us, but she’s made a big difference setting because we didn’t have one with varsity experience,” Burnham said. “Going forward, we know we can’t be tentative with our hitting. Sometimes we get scared at the net and you can see Lincoln is swinging away. We need to swing back because our defense is playing well.”
Tuesday, the Northmen led the opening set 13-11, but then Noel went to the service line and sparked a 6-0 run to give the home side a lead they would never relinquish. Wodogaza and Vygoder helped the Lions end the set on a 7-0 run.
Sweeney used her senior-night lineup in the second set and that proved to be smart for the first 13 points because the Lions raced out to a 9-4 lead. And then the Lions’ serve-receive fell apart, allowing the Northmen to take a 13-11 lead. The Lions tied the game at 15, but then Trowbridge, libero Abigail Angell and the Northmen scored 10 of the set’s final 15 points.
“I was trying to let the seniors play and I was impressed with what they did in the first set because that’s not our starting lineup,” Sweeney said. “I went back to our original lineup in the third set. The other big thing is Alexia Noel is really earning her stripes as our libero.”
The Northmen kept the third set close and only trailed 21-20 after a big play from Codi Anderson, but the Lions scored three straight points to secure the victory. The fourth set following a similar pattern where the Northmen kept the set close, but when a play needed to be made late, it was the Lions who made it to escape with the victory.
“We can be dangerous because you look at this match, Lincoln is in the top three and we held our ground with them,” Burnham said. “If a couple of serves go differently, it could’ve been a game changer.”