Skippers nearly make miracle comeback but nally lose rst game
WOONSOCKET – 18 sets, 18 wins; the immaculate win rate was never going to last.
The 6-0 match record? Maybe it’s better to lower the standards and not expect an undefeated season, even as the Skippers navigate through their revenge tour.
North Kingstown boys volleyball had been as perfect as it gets through six games, but the Skippers met their maker in their seventh match, played on Thursday night in Woonsocket. North Smithfield/Mount Saint Charles co-op (NS/MSC) beat them in five sets by scores of 26-24, 25-21, 2527, 20-25, 15-12.
“I think we needed this for our team,” NK senior Quinlan Fahy said. “Especially being a little younger and having such a good run at the beginning of the season, I think we needed a good tough loss like this to keep us going. I think that was good for us. Of course we’d like to win, but the fact that it was so close and we tried so hard in the end is really good and says a lot.”
The result wasn’t ideal, but the loss was far from embarrassing. It almost was a game to forget, as the Skippers were one point away from a deflating sweep, but they pulled off a miraculous comeback in the third set and won the fourth before they ran out of magic in the fifth.
The Northmen Mounties are no slouches either. In Mount Saint Charles’ final season in the RIIL before their move to the New England Preparatory School Athletic Conference, the coop has eight seniors among the roster of 10 student-athletes who will look to go out with a bang. The win over NK moved them to 5-1.
“We knew we were going to drop a set at some point, and we weren’t expecting an undefeated
season or anything,” NK junior Ryan Harrington said. “It’s still early in the season and we’re going to keep working hard in practice to improve against really great
teams like this.”
After NK won state titles in 2021 and 2022, Chariho upset them in the 2023 Division I semifinals. A few talented seniors left the Skippers, but the playoff loss put a chip on the shoulder of the returning players who aim to
prove they’re still the best in the state.
NK had swept every team they faced so far this season, including defending state champion La Salle on April 9, but NS/MSC had a different edge to them last Thursday. They routinely used
their size at the net to quickly return the ball and catch the Skippers out of position.
The Northmen Mounties winning the first set was surprising, especially since NK held a slight score advantage most of the way, but the second set felt less like a fluke and more like a team establishing dominance.
That trend held all the way until NS/MSC took a 24-19 in the third set, one point away from what looked to be a stunning 3-0 sweep. But the Skippers returned the serve and forced NS/MSC into an error which kicked off a six-point run, with Finn Kearney getting a kill to tie the set at 24 and Harrington giving the Skippers the advantage with one of his 23 total kills.
NS/MSC tied it at 25, but another kill by Harrington gave the Skippers the lead back before they closed it out to stay alive and send the match to a fourth set.
“This team is really gritty,” Fahy said. “Even when we’re up we keep pushing, and when we’re down we try even harder. I think it’s just the energy on the bench. Those two first sets were kind of bland, and energy-wise wise we weren’t feeling it. In that third set,
right at the end, we were just realizing this is possible and the bench was getting into it. And I just pulled a miracle and made those serves and got them out of system a couple times. I just attribute it to the team.”
Cody Tow highlighted the fourth set early on with two spikes, and the Skippers pieced together four straight points to take a 10-9 advantage which they held the rest of the set.
It all fell apart in the final frame for NK however, as NS/MTS built an early 6-1 lead in the first-to-15 tiebreaker. The Skippers worked back to tie it at 11, but the Northmen Mounties won four of the next five points to win the match.
“At the end of the second set, coach said to us, ‘Don’t worry about the score, don’t worry about the other side, we’re going to play our own game,’” Harrington said. “And that’s what we did in the third set. We brought that energy over the fourth set. The fifth set we did the same exact thing, they just got the best of us.
“Last year we got to the semifinals and lost in the fifth set, and we knew we could be better than that,” he added. “Playing in fifth sets,
we don’t do it that often, but when we do we need that energy and the same mindset as any other team in D-I. But we know that this team is awesome. It’s really an energy game.”
Harrington’s team-high 23 kills moved him into the overall Division I lead with 83 on the season. Evan Shea played a great game and recorded 45 assists to add to his D-I lead.
Fahy had seven kills on Thursday and acted as a sparkplug for the Skippers, rotating in and out of the match from his spot on the front line. He had a moment in the second set that briefly got the Skippers back into it following a five-point run by NS/MTS where Fahy called to his teammates for the ball and perfectly executed the kill, then recorded blocks on the next two points.
The Skippers got back on track on Tuesday night, getting revenge over Chariho with a 3-0 (25-17, 25-9, 25-14) win at home. Tow (9 kills) and Ryan Rathbun (8 kills) led the way.
D-I is loaded at the top, but NK still looks like the best team midway through the season. They’ll travel to face Classical (5-2) on Thursday night.