On Saturday, varsity volleyball joined many Deerfield teams in traveling to St. Paul’s for an afternoon match. After some good volleyball and long rallies, it was the Big Green defeating the Big Red, 3-1.
Deerfield got off the bus ready to play today and took an early lead of 8-2 on the strong serving of Elle Stearns ‘23. Nice passing from Zoe Gavros ‘23 allowed setter Daphne Gavros ‘22 to move the ball around to different hitters; a service run from Daphne Gavros helped extend the lead before serving aces from Cate Shanahan ‘23 finished the set at 25-12.
St. Paul’s came out the stronger team at the beginning of the second set and, coupled with some errors from Deerfield, we found ourselves down 13-20. After a timeout, Deerfield started to raise their level of play, getting a touch on every ball and finding timely hitting and blocking from Natalie Meyer ‘23, Aoife Bruce ‘22, and Georgia Sackrey ‘23. Deerfield battled back to 24-24 and while St. Paul’s was able to win the set (24-26), it was clear that Deerfield was ready to come out for a strong third set.
St. Paul’s had good hitting and blocking and the rallies often lasted for extended periods of time, but great hitting from Cate Shanahan, fantastic defense from Zoe Gavros, Daphne Gavros, and Caroline Weller ‘23, and another big service run from Elle Stearns allowed Deerfield to win the 3rd set, 25-19.
Despite an initial slow start to go down 0-3, Deerfield’s strong serving allowed them to take the fourth set 25-7 (with a final point block from Georgia Sackrey).
We next travel just up the road to play a strong NMH team on Wednesday at 2:30 pm.