The men's volleyball team faced off against the Elms Blazers, defeating them in a three set match this past Tuesday at the Athletic Center.
The game started off with missed serves and shanked balls on both sides. The score going back and forth called for a slow start to the Lasers-Blazers face off. The first team to break away was Elms.
At 7-7, Blazers senior right side Klaytin Silva and senior middle Moose Perry put up a massive block against Lasers senior outside Brenden Joyce. Elms then put up another block against senior middle Jan Baranowski to make it 7-9 and ace from Lewis Torres making it 7-10. Elms Perry got another kill, making it 11-7 before Lasell took their first time out.
To answer back after the huddle, Lasers first-year Jasper Schultz put the ball away to gain the serve back.
Elms first year setter Lewis Torres started getting stuck on errors, and with lack of help from Blazers defense siding out, Lasell managed a comeback.The score evened 14-14 on a kill from Lasers sophomore Theo Zaharewicz.
Elms took a time out at 20-17 after a bad set from Torres and an attack error from first-year Jairim Rodriquez. Continuing Lasers service, senior Riley Grenier served seven straight, ending the set 25-17.
The start to the first set mirrored the first with a back and forth of missed serves and dropped balls. Things didn’t start to break off for the Lasers until 9-6 when Joyce got a kill, placing the ball at the feet of Elms defense.
Joyce said “I agree that the first two sets started off slow. To gain momentum in games like this we had to slow our gameplay down and focus on the little things more. By doing this we increase our chances of making big plays that fuel us to keep going and create momentum.”
On point 12-9 Lasers lead, Elms setter Torres used his foot to get the ball up, and although it managed to get over to continue the point, Laser Sophomore Dexter Thomas ultimately put the ball away, gaining point 13-9.
The Lasers were fired up by the time the score read 18-11. With a huge block from Lasers Baranowski and Schultz, much like the Blazers had given to us in the first set, they towered over the Blazers outside attack from Rodriquez, dropping it right in front of their ten foot line.
Grenier, looking to gain another service run, ended this time with only three on a kill answering back from Rodriguez.
With a little back and forth and some errors on Lasells behalf, the second set ended 25-18 on a net touch violation from Cecil Villa.
Set three started differently, with a kill off the bat from Joyce and two attack errors from Blazers Perry and Rodrigiez, Lasers started this set in the lead 3-0.
Elms tried to answer back, but with errors starting to outweigh their successes, hope was starting to look slim for the visiting team.
At 8-5, Zaharewicz got called in the net for an attack over the Blazers block. Elms looked to start gaining more confidence. Score now 10-9 and Elms senior Collin Liedke with serve, Joyce came in from the right side behind the setter for a massive line attack, stunting Elms, making it 11-9.
After Elms had three errors in a row the scoreboard read 17-12 Lasers lead. Elms called another time out, their first for the third set. Coming out of their time out, Zaharewicz continued his service run for another two points with kills from Joyce and sophomore Carter Phillips.
Final Kill from Joyce ended the game 25-13 Lasell.
Joyce had a total of 14 kills with a .619 hitting percentage, while the teams overall hitting percentage was only .442. The only other player with that high a hitting percentage was Thomas with 6 kills and a .750 hitting percentage.
The Lasers next match up will be away against #3 Wentworth Saturday the 8th at 11a.m.
“Preparing for our game against Wentworth we are going to fine tune our lineups to see what works best for us and how to utilize our matchups effectively. The game on Saturday will be a preview of what to expect for the Gnac finals. We have a healthy rivalry with Wentworth so it will be fun to prepare for them and play hard on Saturday,” said Joyce.
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