Sarah Stern ‘21 returns during a heated set with Taft.
Girls’ JV Volleyball suffered a tough loss to Taft after staging a huge comeback in the final three sets. Both teams entered with stellar records, but one of Choate’s losses came earlier in the season to Taft, falling 3-0 at Taft. Heading into the second matchup against Taft, Choate was looking for revenge.
In the first set, Taft jumped out to an early lead, and they did not look back as they won the set 25-9 over Choate. However, the two volleyball teams played a much closer second set. During this set, Taft again held the lead early, but Choate evened the score at 13-13 after four straight aces by junior Maria Hainig ’19. Then, both teams traded points with each other until Choate eventually took the lead off of a spike at the net which put them ahead 24-22. Although they had the lead, Choate was not able to hold on, and they ended up losing the set 26-24.
After losing the first two sets, Choate came out determined in the third set. They held the lead against Taft for most of the third set, but Taft was only one or two points behind Choate at any given moment. Eventually, Choate separated themselves a bit from Taft, and Sarah Stern ’21 finished off the set with a beautiful ace, and Choate won the set 25-19.
With momentum from the third set, Choate dominated the fourth set. They jumped out to an early lead against Taft because of excellence on both the offensive and defensively as Choate had numerous blocks and spikes. They dominated Taft to such a large extent that Choate held a ten point lead over Taft during the fourth set. During one point of this set, sophomore Irie Cooper ’20 had an amazing hit to keep the ball in play that resulted in Choate eventually finishing the point. The set ended after Taft served the ball too far that secured the set 25-14 in Choate’s favor.
Similar to the previous set, Choate jumped out to an early lead. One long rally in the beginning of the fifth set was finished off by a remarkable spike by Maria Hainig ’19 which the Taft player were not able to return. After the spike Choate held the lead 6-1. However, Taft strung together five straight points, and they tied the set up 6-6 after an ace. Taft’s momentum did not slow down as they continued to set up and finish multiple spikes in the second half of the fifth set. Eventually, Taft won the set and the match 15-8 after a spike by one of their players.
On the topic of the tough loss, head coach Mr. Filipe Camarotti said, “It was really great to see the team coming back from being down two games and chipping away at it.” He then added, “This was one of our better games. Regardless of the win or loss, I think we really fought for it today.” Despite the tough loss at home, the girls capped their season with a 3-0 win over Deerfield, ending their season in style by destroying their rivals to the North.
