Photo by Kaity Shaughnessy
By Olivia Dubin
Sports Reporter
The Newton South girls’ volleyball team is facing off against Newton North tonight in a crosstown playoff match. Denebola got the chance to sit down with junior Maggie Winters to talk about the upcoming game.
How has the team prepared for the upcoming playoff game?
“We’ve been practicing, obviously, but we’ve been also resting ourselves a little bit. During the regular season we would be practicing 6 times a week. Now, as we’ve been getting into playoffs, we had our game Thursday and then had Friday and Saturday off, with a practice Sunday. We’ve definitely been resting more than in the regular season and just been making sure we are super spirited.”
What are some of your personal and team goals for this game?
“Well, I think one of our obvious team goals is to win, but you know, if we can’t do that, just have a really good game, not have a bunch of unforced errors, like hitting the ball out or serving out. We are going to try not to lose points on stuff that’s in our control. I think that’s also one of my personal goals. I definitely want to have more kills than hitting errors, and as a team, [we want to] communicate and just play the best we can. If we go and play our game and let North play theirs, that’s all we can do.”
What specific players and parts of the team do you feel will contribute positively to this game?
“Ella Kim is an incredible player, so obviously I think she is going to contribute a lot to this game, she contributes to the vast majority of our kills. We also have players like Phoebe Blumberg and Catherine Patti and Becca Friedman, they are all super consistent, which is really important because volleyball is really a game of streaks. Maria Dinisco is an amazing player, but she also just cheers so much for every single person. She’s always cheering and yelling and always really happy to be there.”
How do you think this game, being against and at North, will affect the play?
“I think in any playoff game we want to win, because we don’t want to go home, but I think North adds onto the excitement because North is often seen as a better school for, ports. Obviously their sports teams are really good but I think we want to prove that wrong and go in there and win. They’re the number one seed in our division and we’re the number 8, so we are definitely the underdog, and we are playing in their gym. I know there will be a lot of people from North there but since it in Newton hopefully there will be a lot of people from South there too. I think it’s really motivating us, we want to go into their gym and pull through and win and go into the next round.
What are the emotions going through the team knowing there is a lot riding on this game?
“We are all just really excited to get the opportunity to play North and play the game that we can control. I guess it could be stressful, but we aren’t making it a super stressful experience. As a team though I think we are just super excited and using what could be stress more as motivation to win and keep the season going.”
