Photo by Denebola Staff
By Theo Severud
Sports Reporter
Newton South girls’ varsity volleyball fell in three sets in Cambridge in a tough match on Thursday.
The first set went back and forth at the beginning, with South holding the lead for the first part. As the set went on, however, they struggled to convert on their attacks and fell behind 12-15 on a string of Cambridge points.
After their burst to take the lead, Cambridge controlled the rest of the set and won it 16-25.
Senior Captain Catherine Patti summarized South’s first set.
“Our serving and passing went really well, and we earned much better stats than we had been getting recently,” Patti said. “What took us down was our attacking. We had too many unforced errors and couldn’t make up for them.”
Only one of South’s nine players in the game had a positive attacking percentage, with three players having a neutral attacking percentage and the remaining five players with more errors than successful attacks.
The second set started off poorly for South and they quickly fell behind 6-10. Although they continued to fight hard throughout the set and were able to mount a sizable comeback, the Lions ultimately fell short, losing the set 20-25.
The third set opened more evenly than the last, with the teams going back and forth until the score was 11-11. The rest of the set played out back and forth, but South was unable to keep a lead and fell 21-25 in the final set.
Currently sitting at 8-5, the team is in pursuit two more wins to clinch a tournament berth.
“I’m very confident we will get the two wins,” captain Stella Owings said. “Once we get ten wins we are entered into the state tournament.”
South will play Westford Academy on Tuesday and will look to take a big step towards the tournament.
