The ConVal girls’ volleyball team improved through the course of the season and is playing their best volleyball of the season in the past two weeks.
Fresh off their first win of the year, ConVal put up a good effort against John Stark Wednesday and nearly upset Pelham on Friday.
“That was our best game so far, 100 percent,” said senior Haley Davis after Friday’s senior game, a four-set affair that saw the Cougars win one and lose by two in the remainder, as close as a team can come to winning without putting it away. “We’ve only been to four sets one time before,” Davis said, “so it was really important for us to show our coach we could do more than we normally do, because it’s been a rough season. We were extremely competitive, and I think we were pretty even with them, except we made more mistakes than we normally do.”
ConVal’s five seniors – Davis, Haiden Burnside, Izzy Ketchersid, Molly Cole and Lillian James – are all from Antrim, schoolmates since day one.
“We’ve gone from kindergarten all the way to senior year, so this was a wicked important season for us,” Davis said. “We became super close with the entire team.”
It was that dynamic that kept the Cougars fighting and improving despite starting the season on a 12-game losing streak.
“They always are motivated, it’s awesome,” said head coach Amanda Hinton. “With their attitude, it helps bring up the whole team.”
The departing seniors had good games their final time out on the ConVal floor. Davis had 12 digs and 14 successful serve receives; Cole had nine kills and four aces; James had 14 digs and 18 successful serve receives and Burnside had three aces. And, the youth movement made their mark, too; junior Isis Battaglia had seven kills and two aces; freshman Kendall Sullivan had two kills and six aces, and junior Julia Donovan continued to look good in her first volleyball season.
“We have a lot of seniors,” Hinton said, “but we have some pretty good underclassmen who are kind of shining. We have good things to look forward to in the future.”
ConVal (1-14) concludes the year at Somersworth (3-11) on Friday.
Mascenic looks good down the stretch
The Vikings hung with No. 1 undefeated Inter-Lakes on Thursday and then swept Moultonborough Friday to improve to 10-5 on the year with one game remaining.
Mascenic took the first set against Inter-Lakes 25-22 before losing three straight in one of the toughest tests of the season to date.
“It was a good playoff atmosphere,” said head coach Karen Gibson, “gave us a taste of what’s to come in the next couple weeks!”
On their senior night, Elizabeth Spaulding had four kills and Molly Rines had four aces.
At Moultonborough, the Vikings went to 28-26 in set one before finishing off the remainder with a little more breathing room.
Spaulding had six kills, and Sam Hughson played well at the net offensively and defensively, Gibson said.
Mascenic is sixth in Division III and finishes the season at Hillsborough-Deering (2-12) Wednesday.