St. Anne survives scare to win AAA volleyball title
The road to a repeat was a bumpy one for the St. Anne Saints.
The top-seeded Saints rolled to victory in the first set, but then dropped the next two games before rallying for a five-set victory over the St. Joseph Lasers in the WECSSAA girls’ AAA volleyball final on Wednesday.
“It was pretty hard,” Saints cocaptain Jenna Pellerito said. “We were down, but we got it back. You have to stay positive, no matter if you’re down. You try to bring your team together.”
The Saints rallied to take the match 25-10, 22-25, 13-25, 25-20 and 15-6 at St. Anne high school.
“Volleyball’s a very mental game,” St. Anne co-captain Claire LaMarre said.
“So we just worked together and brought each other along and brought each other’s energy up.”
The Saints looked poised to roll to the title after taking the first game easily, but the secondseeded Lasers rallied to take the next two games.
“My girls have incredible determination,” Lasers captain Amelia Oliverio said.
“That’s one thing I’ve learned about them. They play like every play is going to be their last one, and I’m extremely proud.”
St. Joseph got back into the game with strong passing from setter Alexis Stewart, which allowed Oliverio and Meghan Hunt to tee off.
“Not our best,” the 17-year-old Pellerito said. “I think we lost communication. I think we lost energy.”
But the Lasers struggled to handle the serving from St. Anne throughout the entire match and that opened the door for the Saints to get even.
Oliverio thought her teammates may have got ahead of themselves as St. Anne broke a 14-14 tie with 11 of the set’s final 17 points.
“The fourth set was all mental,” the 17-year-old Oliverio said. “As soon as you start letting it go that, ‘Oh, we’re going to win.’ Nope, you have to watch every ball.
“It’s just the little runs that killed us. Letting them go on three, four runs, we couldn’t do that. That’s what cost us the game.”
Five-straight service points by LaMarre allowed the Saints to open a 7-2 lead in the fifth and deciding set and the Lasers could never close the gap.
“Just to sides of the body that we weren’t comfortable passing,” Oliverio said of her team’s struggles with the St. Anne service game. “They really picked up on it because St. Anne is a good team. They pick apart that kind of stuff.
“It’s very frustrating. This is my second year going against St. Anne in WECSSAA finals and losing.”
The senior girls’ A final also needed five sets to decide as the second-seeded Lajeunesse Royals rallied to beat top-seeded Maranatha, which was seeking its third-straight title, 3-2 by scores of 25-23, 25-27, 18-25, 25-22 and 15-12 at Academie Ste. Cecile on Wednesday.