The Deerfield girls headed down to Loomis on 9/27 to face the Pelicans in one of our most challenging matches of the season. The Pelicans came out strong in the first set, making it difficult for the Big Green to respond. The Deerfield team had particular trouble with serve receive, combining for a rating of 1.44/3 total. Our lack of ball control on defense seriously affected our ability to create an offense. During the first and second set we managed only 4 kills each game. We also had more hitting errors than kills during those first two sets, as our mental toughness to push through hard-fought sets was tested.
During the third set of the match Deerfield rose to the challenge, and proved themselves with incredible serving and consistent passing. We racked up 9 total kills in the set, and had went 100% on serves. With no serving errors and only 1 hitting error in the entire set, the Deerfield team clearly played “our game,” our motto for this season. Another theme for us this season has been to “control the controllables,” which means minimizing unforced errors. For the girls to come back after two hard losses and play outstandingly in this set showed strength in skill and in attitude. A highlight of this set was our outside hitter, Imani Kindness-Coleman ’18. She hit +0.625 with 5 kills and no errors, had a block assist, and also had 2 digs. Imani also stepped into the outside position after playing opposite the first two sets, and completely stepped up to the challenge. Camila Navarro ’20 also stepped up, serving 3 aces and hitting +0.250 as an opposite after playing outside the first two matches.
In the fourth set Loomis came back swinging hitting +0.364 as a team and getting 15 kills to Deerfield’s +0.125 with 5 kills. Although the Big Green came home with a loss, we were able to take away some important lessons from the match, and plan on using them in our upcoming matches against Williston and St. Paul’s.