WHS volleyball earns second consecutive win by defeating Westbrook

By Matt Pascarella

After Windham High’s varsity volleyball team previously shut out Sanford, 3-0, the Eagles earned their second win of the season during a match against Westbrook at Windham High on Friday, Sept. 26. The match was pushed to the fifth set in a best-of-five sets contest and Windham won the match, 3-2.

Windham senior Sydney Harmon spikes the ball over the
net during a volleyball match against Westbrook at
Windham High School on Friday, Sept. 26.
PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA 

“We knew that to win this we’d have to work together as a team and that’s something we’ve been working really hard on is trusting each other on the court,” said Windham senior libero Lauren Neal, who had 15 digs against Westbrook. “I think it really paid off tonight. Toward the end, our communication got a lot better, we were calling where things were going. I think our attitudes were pretty good throughout the match – we were staying positive. It was thinking about the big picture as the match was really close. We know we haven’t done our best this season and we want to be able to prove ourselves. A second win feels really good.”

Right out of the gate, Windham showed they were ready to win. Windham took the lead early and were able to hold onto it until the end of the set. At one point, Windham led by 11. Senior Josephine Sibley scored over 10 points serving in this set and Windham won the set in a 25-8 blowout. Overall, Sibley had 12 digs and nine aces.

In the second set, Westbrook took an early lead, but Windham wasn’t far behind. At one point Windham was down by seven points but fought back and tied the set, 19-19. Westbrook pulled ahead and took this set, 25-20.

The third set was tied 7-7 early on. Windham defense blocked a ball and allowed Windham to take the lead. Windham had a 10-point lead. With senior Rowan Cummings serving the Eagles reached set point and won, 25-14.

“It's not just winning,” said Cummings, who had two digs and four aces overall. “It's more about ... playing our best game. And playing up to how we know we're going to play. Our two main goals were communication and serve-receive. To bring that energy and support each other. It was having that communication and being there for each other (when the match got close) as a unit instead of individual players. I think what went really well was our energy, we had great serves, we had great hits. A big thing for us is to come into the game with a mindset of being our best, we need to have a more positive outlook to things because volleyball is a very error-surrounding game. We need to look at errors as ways to make improvements.”

In the fourth set, Windham fought hard to end the match here. Shortly, the set was tied 14-14 but Sibley spiked the ball, and the set was even closer. It was tied, 18-18, but Westbrook was able to pull ahead and won 25-20 to bring the match to a tiebreaker final set.

The fifth set is played to 15 and Windham jumped out in front early, and stayed there, as the Eagles’ defense kept Westbrook scoring to a minimum and Windham really came together. Quickly, it was match point and Windham won the deciding set, 15-6.

“We had lows, but we had more of the highs,” said Windham volleyball coach Chris Cloutier. “We found out how to get out of those lows a little bit faster. It tends to be on our serve-receive that we have a couple missed serve-receive and that’s what starts that low. It was just in serve-receive; they didn't carry it to hitting. We kept the errors in that area and didn’t let it spread to errors in our hitting and our serving. That is a good start to mental toughness. Tonight was a good step ... we’ve made progress from where we were. Back-to-back wins feels good; I think it’ll give the girls a little more confidence.” <