Melrose Volleyball One Win Away From State Championship

One more match is all that stands in the way of a Massachusetts state championship for the girls’ volleyball team.

The Lady Red Raiders inched one step closer with a 3-2 win over Longmeadow Tuesday evening in the Massachusetts Division 2 Semifinals at Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton.

With the win Melrose advances to Saturday’s state championship match against the winner of Central Mass. champion Marlborough and Southern Mass. champion Fairhaven. The finals are slated to take place at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough at 2:30 p.m.

“This is an unbelievable feeling. We’ve been here three years in a row and lost the last two years,” said Melrose head coach Scott Celli, whose North Mass championship squad improves to 23-1 on the year. “This team has been on a mission all year long and their number one goal has been to make it to the state championship and win it. So now we’re one step closer.”

Entering Tuesday’s battle the Red Raiders hadn’t lost a set throughout the postseason. Melrose punched its ticket to the state semis with 3-0 victories over Burlington in the quarterfinals, North Reading in the semifinals and Bishop Fenwick in the North sectional title match.

On Tuesday night, Melrose’s path to victory wasn’t quite as easy. After winning the first set 25-22, the Red Raiders dropped the next two sets by scores of 25-18 and 25-17.

Melrose showed the heart of a champion, refusing to go down without a fight, coming back with a 25-22 win to force a deciding fifth set. In that final set the Red Raiders showed just what they were made of battling tooth and nail to a 15-12 win earning a berth in Saturday’s finals.  

“Words can’t even describe how I’m feeling right now. It hasn’t even hit me yet,” said Melrose senior captain Alyssa DiRaffaele after Tuesday night’s match. “We’ve never done this before so it has to sink in. This is amazing.”

An Opening Salvo, And Then A Comeback

The Lancers (19-2) gave the Red Raiders everything they could handle and then some all evening long. In the first set the two squads went back and forth like a pair of championship prize fighters. Melrose opened a slim 12-7 lead on the strength of solid net play from players like Rachel Johnson, Jill Slabacheski and Kayla Wyland. All three Red Raiders contributed with kills in the early stages of the set.

Melrose expanded the lead to 20-12 later in the set before the Lancers responded with a run of their own, cutting the once comfortable Melrose lead to a single point at 20-19.  However, Slabacheski and company weren’t going to let this one slip away as the senior captain led the charge down the stretch with a pair of kills as the Red Raiders scored five of the final eight points to notch the win in the opening set.

In the second set Melrose picked up where it left off, opening a quick 3-1 lead thanks to an ace from DiRaffaele and a kill from Sarah McGowan. However, the Lancers proved that they didn’t come this far just to be pushovers. Longmeadow hung tough and clawed its way back to even at six. The Lancers grabbed a 7-6 on a Jen Hurwitz spike and never relinquished it again on their way to a 25-18 win.

In the pivotal third set played like a carbon copy of the first two. The clubs played to a 14-14 tie midway through the set before the Lancers went on a 7-1 run to seize control of the set and open a 21-15 lead and didn’t look back.

With the season on the line and their backs against the wall, the Red Raiders continued to fight, claiming an 8-4 lead following a kill from McGowan, but the Lancers once again responded. A 9-1 run gave Longmeadow a 13-9 lead and it looked like the Melrose girls could be in trouble.

Following a timeout the Red Raiders climbed back into it one point at a time tying the game at 14 on their way to an 18-15 lead. Jennifer Cain was a force up front for the Red Raiders during the run.

Pivotal Fifth Set Comes Down To Pressure At The Net

The pesky Lancers wouldn’t go away though, with five of the next six points to grab a 20-19 lead, but the Red Raiders weren’t to be denied, answering with the next four points to put a stranglehold on the set and force a winner-take-all fifth set.

“I told the girls in the huddle that if we can go up and beat them (Longmeadow) at the net and pressure them we will win this match,” said Celli when asked about his message to his squad before the fourth set. “The girls then went out and did it. We have a better defensive team when we challenge them at the net.”

In the all important fifth set the Red Raiders once again came out strong in the early stages. Melrose claimed a 4-0 lead before the Lancers knew what hit them. That lead would balloon to 8-4 before Longmeadow began to chip away, closing to within 10-9 to keep everyone in the gym on the edge of their seats.

Two quick Melrose points, highlighted by a Sydney Dorothy kill gave the team a little breathing room at 12-9 but the Lancers answered those two points with two points of their own to make it 12-11. The Red Raiders wasn’t about to let this set slip as they recorded three of the next four points to clinch the match.