WINCHESTER – The No. 7 Winchester boys volleyball group put up a robust struggle within the ultimate set, however after it fell behind early within the ALS One Invitational championship recreation Thursday afternoon, it was enterprise as normal for No. 1 Needham to roll to a twenty eighth straight win.
Behind its typical barrage of highly effective hits and continued serve-receive success, the Rockets (6-0) utilized a string of overwhelming momentum shifts to beat a visibly pissed off Red and Black group, 3-0 (25-14, 25-6, 25-23), for one more dominating win over a signature opponent. Ben Putnam exploded for 18 kills, main a well-balanced effort that noticed Raymond Weng (32 assists) hyperlink with seven totally different hitters for kills.
Winchester (6-3) confirmed its means to hold with the reigning Div. 1 champions all through the match, however a number of clusters of Needham kills paired with Red and Black errors to create large momentum shifts. The Rockets benefitted from 5 totally different 5-0 runs, serving to them enhance their streak to 84 straight set wins.
“Winchester did a nice job,” mentioned Needham head coach Dave Powell. “Volleyball, it’s a crazy game psychologically. There were definitely some shifts throughout the course of the match. They’re a really good team. It’s a good win.”
Even lacking key starter Brian Kavanaugh to a non-COVID sickness for the sport, Winchester flashed its expertise behind Quincy Moore (12 assists, eight kills) and Jasper Schultz (seven kills) to problem Needham in bits and items. That included back-and-forth play to begin the primary set, and a 3rd set that got here right down to the wire after Winchester lastly rediscovered its groove.
Between these two spans although, Needham merely bulldozed.
After an error helped Winchester knot the rating at 7-7, kills from Derek Yang (5 kills) and Putnam had been adopted by a pair of hitting errors and a Red and Black timeout. Winchester’s deficit started snowballing from there, because it grew pissed off with extra hitting errors and cruel kills from the Rockets.
The momentum of a 14-7 run to shut out the primary set carried into the second, with Putnam, Nolan Leary (4 kills) and Weng powering a 5-0 begin. A Winchester response didn’t final lengthy, and Putnam feasted for seven kills within the body whereas the Red and Black couldn’t hold its composure collectively. The second set, ending 25-6, closed on a 10-0 Needham run.
“It’s nice to have a guy as an outside hitter (Ben Putnam), who the ball goes to a lot, it’s nice to be able to feed him and know he’s a smart player and he’s a powerful player,” Powell mentioned. “He’ll do something with the ball. He’s good.”
It wasn’t till the ultimate body that Winchester discovered it’s mojo, using a stretch of Needham errors and massive performs from Schultz and Moore to beat an 11-4 deficit and knot the rating at 11-11. Leary, Putnam and Kevin Coppinger traded blows with Schultz, Moore and Jamie Watt the remainder of the best way, with neither group main by greater than 4 factors from there.
In the top, Needham strung collectively extra performs to safe the sweep. But Winchester head coach John Fleming was happy with how nicely his group performed as soon as it settled down from the primary two units.
“(Needham) has so much offense and defensively they’re so tough, I think we just let that get to us,” he mentioned. “I challenged them in the third set to say, ‘Hey, can we play some of our best volleyball today to give ourselves a chance?’ And we did. … Now we know that we can at least compete (with the best).”
In the comfort recreation, Son Nguyen had a career-high 50 assists and Jonathan Narsjo had a school-record 33 kills as O’Bryant outlasted New Bedford, 3-2.
Source: www.bostonherald.com