The Whaler volleyball team jumped over the .500 mark this season with a 3-0 win over the Falmouth Clippers, improving their record to 3-2 on the year. Head coach Andrew Viselli said his team is beginning to gain confidence in themselves and understand the game more and more by the set.
“I think our kids are starting to believe they can play and we are starting to get that growth I have been talking about of taking the step to that next level of play,” Viselli said. “The kids are communicating with each other more often than communicating with me. They are starting to understand the game more, realizing I don’t need to be facilitating everything that happens, and that a lot of that can be done by them on the court.”
The Whalers won the first set 25-19 but Viselli said he believed the play was closer than the score would indicate. He likened the approach to the beginning of the match to the approach teams take in the final of the FIFA World Cup.
“If you have watched world cup soccer think of the final match of the world cup where in the first half nothing happens,” Viselli said. “You are just feeling the other side out. It is just a ball going back and forth. There is no rhythm to the game yet. Then all of a sudden one team is making some mistakes and another team is capitalizing on it. That is how the first set went for us and we were able to pull out a few extra points than they could.”
The Whalers won the second set 25-23 and won seven of the final nine points of the set. The second set was outside hitter Chloe Marrero’s best of the match. She finished the day with a team-high nine kills and six aces.
“Chloe ripped off several aces in that set and that was a difference maker for us,” Viselli said. ”Once we start generating points from the service line it gives us some comfort and some more confidence.”
The third set was another tight one with the Whalers narrowly winning it 25-23. He said while his team made some key plays to win these tight sets, unforced errors continue to plague this team. He said he expects his team to trim the number of mistakes down as the season progresses and that this is part of the development of a young volleyball team through the course of a high school season.
“When you start playing some of these better programs like our game against D-Y just look at all the unforced errors we had,” Viselli said. “They ripped off at least eight serves on us where we shanked passes but when you take those away it is much different game. Those errors catch up to you against this higher level of competition. My job will be to continue pushing them to be dialed in from the first point of the first set.”
Viselli applauded the effort of freshman setter Bianca Santos yet again, who finished with 15 assists, for her ability to run a balanced offensive attack. He also credited seniors Yvie Scarlett and Viktoria Krasteva for their leadership through five games.
The Whalers will travel to take on the undefeated Sturgis East Storm (4-0) today at 5:30 pm. The Whalers last played the Storm in the league tournament last year. The Whalers trailed 2-1 through three sets but were able to complete the comeback, winning the final two sets to earn a trip to the league championship, which they won 3-1 over Sturgis West.
