LEWISTON — With its back against the wall, the Lewiston volleyball team battled back to defeat Cony on Tuesday.
After the Rams won the third set, the Blue Devils didn’t back down and won the next two sets for a 3-2 victory on Coach Fern Masse Court.
Last year, in the school’s first season with a varsity volleyball program, Lewiston finished 2-14, with a regular season win over North Yarmouth Academy in late September and a postseason victory over Portland in a Class A play-in game.
Blue Devils coach Nikki Pelletier said getting the first win of year two in the second game will set the tone for the rest of the season.
“It’s going to have a big effect on how the season goes, for the girls to know early in the season they are capable of winning when last year it wasn’t until the (middle of the season) where they really felt that accomplishment, where they were good enough. It’s nice they can feel it now,” Pelletier said.
After losing the third set 25-5, Lewiston jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the fourth, propelled by the serving of Mika Torres. In the match, she went 14 of 18 in serves with five aces.
Cony (0-2) chipped away at the deficit, cutting it to 10-6, but the Blue Devils stretched the lead to 20-10 and ended up winning the set 25-14 to tie the match at 2-2.
“I think that fourth set, we went in overconfident a little bit,” Cony coach Lindsey Morin said. “We get in a habit of once we start mistakes, seeing things (go wrong) or not communicating, that gets the best of us.”
The Blue Devils battle back and fourth in the fifth set, in which the teams only needed to get to 15 points and win by two — compared to the first four sets, which require 25 points and a two-point margin.
The score was tied 5-5 until Lewiston won the next five points to take a 10-5 advantage. Cony took a timeout and then won four of the next five points to cut the Blue Devils’ lead to two points, 11-9.
Morin said timeouts can change the flow of a set.
“I think it’s really huge, of course, you only get two timeouts, so I try to use them strategically,” Morin said. “At some point, you need to stay focused on the next point: good, bad, or otherwise.”
Lewiston responded in kind, calling a timeout to stop the Rams’ momentum. The Blue Devils then won four of the next six points to take the set 15-11 and the match 3-2.
Lewiston (1-1) coach Nikki Pelletier said the Blue Devils did a good job of overcoming the Rams’ stellar servers.
“Cony had some incredible servers that didn’t miss all night, which is really hard to compete against,” Pelletier said. “I was proud of the Lewiston girls to keep going and receive those serves. Finally, it didn’t feel like until that fourth and fifth sets we got our serves under control.”
Jasmyne Mills of Cony had six aces to open the third set, and went 9 of 14 on serves in that set.
Kenzie Garcia was 13 of 13 serving with three aces for Lewiston. She also had seven kills. Teammate Kaitlyn Shannon also served well, going 14 of 16 with an ace, to go along with six kills.
The Rams took the first set 25-17 and Lewiston squeaked out the second set 26-24.
Pelletier said that winning that second set was crucial.
“I think, with varsity (playing) five sets, losing the first two is tough because you have to come back 0-3,” Pelletier said. “It’s not a position anybody wants to be in. We talked (in between the first and second sets) about what they weren’t doing right in that first set. I just kind of reminded them that they are capable of competing.”
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