Hosting a strong, disciplined, and experienced St. Paul’s team on Saturday, Deerfield varsity volleyball fell to the Big Red 1-3.
After a strong week of practice, Deerfield came out ready to play in the first set. Neither team was able to string together many consecutive points and the score remained tight until Deerfield was able to pull out to a lead on the serving strength of Camilla Navarro ‘20 and the hitting of Kaelene Spang ‘19 and Georgia Quesnelle ‘19. St. Paul’s used an uptempo offense and varied hitting positions that forced our blockers to make quick reads; Deerfield responded and was able to close out the first set.
The second set opened much like the first with back-and-forth play, including strong setting from Rosa Sun’21, but great passing from St. Paul’s and less confident passing from Deerfield allowed the Big Red to pull away mid-set to even the score at 1-1.
Realizing that this would clearly be a hard-fought match, the Deerfield team responded with fiery play and increased intensity at the net. Lara Akande ‘20 had a number of great blocks and forceful kills while Daphne Gavros ‘22 continued to retrieve balls that looked ungettable and set up our offense for success. While St. Paul’s won the 3rd and 4th sets, Deerfield pushed them the whole way and all our players kept their high-energy play and support throughout the entire match. It was high-quality volleyball from both teams and while it is always hard to lose a match, Deerfield looks forward to a rematch in the first week of November.
Deerfield returns to the court for another home match on Wednesday at 2:30 pm against NMH.