by Jake Freudberg & Ethan Krop
Sports Reporters
The Newton South boys’ volleyball team swept Brockton High School 3-0 in the first round of the MIAA South Sectional playoffs, earning them a spot in the South Section semi-finals on Friday.
Due to a week off since their last regular-season game, South struggled initially and Brockton jumped out to an early lead in the first set, but South battled back to win the set 25-21.
“We’ve had a week off,” head coach Todd Elwell said. “That’s sometimes a little tough to come in and hit your stride, but once we got going we had some moments when we were chugging along.”
South rallied around strong play from senior captains Noah Kopf (21 kills, .400 hitting percentage, 13 digs) and Krish Maypole (34 assists), senior Ruslan Crosby (3 aces, 7 digs), and junior Ariel Fine (4 kills, .375 hitting percentage) to win the second set 25-14 and the third set 25-20.
Kopf stated there were some key successes in the game, which led to the dominant performance over Brockton.
“Our serving was tough, our passing was good, and overall we were just in system more than they were,” he said. “That allowed us to run our offense harder, hit harder, and let us win the game.”
With an overall team .235 hitting percentage, Elwell explained that his team had the advantage over Brockton for most of the match, and made it difficult on their offensive attack.
“There were moments when we got them out of system with our serving, so we had some nice float serves that were making them move,” Elwell said. “Blocking wise, we had some nice blocks, we were taking away some air space.”
At the same time, however, Elwell also added that his team has to improve in some areas in order to continue winning.
“Our serve receive was a little shaky to start [and we had] some unforced errors here and there,” Elwell said. “If you don’t beat yourself in volleyball, you have a shot at winning. But as soon as you have a lot of unforced errors, then it lets a lot of teams in the door, so it’s really just a matter of playing your best game when it’s needed.”
Kopf stressed the importance of the serve game in upcoming games, where the Lions will face tougher tests that require a more consisting serving performance, without the aforementioned unforced errors.
“[We need to] serve more consistently and serve tougher,” Kopf said. “The passing from Greater New Bedford is going to be a lot better than what we saw today… serving consistently will give us the edge in future games.”
Looking forward, South needs to win four more games to win the MIAA state championship. Their next matchup is against Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational-Technical High School in the South Section semifinals on Friday night at 6:30 pm at the Fieldhouse at South.
