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The Winchester High School girls volleyball team (16-0) is cruising to the postseason, and, if its last five matches are any indication of what lies ahead, November just might be a month to remember.
The Red & Black not only won the five, but they did so convincingly by shutouts over the likes of Lexington (Oct. 7), Watertown (Oct. 9), non-league Bellingham (Oct. 10), Arlington (Oct. 14) and Burlington (Oct. 16)
In that Lexington matchup on the road, coach John Fleming said that “Karen Huai (2 aces) served really (well), and got us going on a couple of good runs.”
The veteran coach also singled out Hazel Lovins, who had “some big-time swings with 19 kills,” but otherwise he added, “the offense was really spread out, with Johanna (Melhorn), Maddie (Crooks) and Viviana (Cella) all getting multiple kills.”
Against Watertown at the McCall Middle School gym, the Winchester girls tried a few different lineups, and everybody responded really well, according to Fleming, who went on to say, “our seniors really led the charge. Nora (Harstad) had seven kills to pace the attack, while Gwen (Gaiko) and (Melhorn) were terrific at the net. Julia (Campo) (sparked) the defense in the back row.”
Bellingham, a team that played in back-to-back Division 4 state finals and will be in the mix this fall as a Division 3 club, then came up to McCall gym last week to test the Red & Black as a program with postseason experience.
“We knew that they would have a great year this season, and I thought it would be a good matchup to help us prepare for the state tournament,” said Fleming. “(Crooks) and Kaiyal (Kumaran) both were terrific in receiving serves. Hazel (collected) 15 kills, but more impressively was hitting at a .355 rate. (Melhorn) had three blocks, and was very disruptive at the net. I thought (Huai) with five digs and two blocks had one of her best (matches) of the season. Defne (Mergen) did a nice job in distributing the offense with 29 assists. This was a good overall win against a strong opponent.”
The Red & Black started a new week the same way they have been doing it since early September with another dominating win, this time it was against visiting Arlington, followed by a road triumph over Burlington that led into another challenge versus host Newton North, authors of three straight Division 1 titles, to complete the penultimate week of the regular season on Oct. 17. The Tigers (14-2) are currently third in the Division 1 power rankings, just ahead of fourth-seeded Winchester, according to the Oct. 17 poll. Chelmsford and Shrewsbury are the top two teams in the division with identical 17-0 records.
Woburn (Oct. 20, Winchester High gym, 5:30 p.m.), Reading (Oct. 22, at RMHS, 5:45 p.m.) and Belmont (Oct. 24, Winchester High gym, 5:30 p.m.) will close out a regular season to remember next week with the state tournament right around the corner.
Joe McConnell is a longtime, award-winning sports editor for numerous North Shore publications. He began covering Winchester sports for the News last November.
