Titans in new territory

Posted 10/16/14

After losing its first six matches of the season, the Toll Gate volleyball team broke into the win column on Sept. 26 with a victory over Narragansett.

And the Titans didn’t stop there. …

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Titans in new territory

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After losing its first six matches of the season, the Toll Gate volleyball team broke into the win column on Sept. 26 with a victory over Narragansett.

And the Titans didn’t stop there.

With a 3-0 sweep of West Warwick on Tuesday night, Toll Gate has won four of its last six matches. Its only losses were to undefeated East Greenwich and then-second place Pilgrim, and the match with the Patriots went deep into a fifth game.

From 0-6 to 4-8, the Titans have officially turned things around.

“The winning mentality is kicking in,” said Toll Gate head coach Andrew Bevilacqua. “I think they see that they can win and they can make a run at the playoffs if they play well. The effort they’re putting forth right now is just incredible.”

The Titans expected to be in the mix when the season began. After some challenging years in Division I, they moved to D-II this season and were ready to contend. But shaking off the tough years – and the mentality that comes with them – proved difficult. The Titans showed flashes early in the regular season but couldn’t get over the hump.

When it finally happened with consecutive wins over Narragansett and Westerly, Toll Gate was off and running.

“We beat Narragansett, we beat Westerly, and I think they finally got that mentality that, ‘Hey, we can win some matches here,’” Bevilacqua said.

Enthusiasm was still tempered by the fact that Narragansett and Westerly are the bottom two teams in Division II-Central, but the Titans have erased any doubts since then. Last week, they beat Cranston East in five games, the same East team that handled them 3-1 in the season opener. After taking a game from East Greenwich – something only two other teams have done all season – the Titans nearly knocked off a red-hot Pilgrim team, falling 23-21 in the decisive fifth game.

On Tuesday, the Titans re-ignited the revenge tour against the Wizards, who came in at 6-4 and had beaten the Titans 3-2 early in the season. Toll Gate fell behind 6-0 in game one, but rallied quickly and was clearly the better team from that point on. The Titans won 25-13, 25-17 and 25-23.

“West Warwick came in and beat us in five just a few weeks ago,” Bevilacqua said. “So hopefully this helps us turn the corner.”

The Wizards got two aces from Jordin Laporte and three kills by Emily Langlais in the 6-0 start to game one. Jamie Hopgood stopped the run with a kill, but West Warwick won the next two points to go up 8-1.

Then everything changed.

A service error by West Warwick gave a point to the Titans and started a run of 10 points in a row. Hopgood had three kills in the burst, with Alyssa Mathews and Katelyn Stamps adding one each. Ashley Chin added an ace, and her consistently strong serving kept the Titans rolling.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before we got it together,” Bevilacqua said. “We’ve done that of late. Cranston East and Pilgrim, we lost game one and two and had to win the next two. We’ve been working hard, so I really felt like it was just a matter of time. Once we got the lead in the first game, we kind of never looked back.”

A kill by Langlais stopped the run, but the Wizards never got closer than two points before the Titans pulled away again. They won the last eight points to clinch the victory. Taylor Payton had three aces, and Hopgood ended the game with a kill, after a key dig by Faith Porter.

In game two, the Titans fell behind 1-0 but won the next six points, capped by a Payton ace. From there, the lead never dipped below three. A run of five in a row made it 23-11 before the Wizards got within seven, but Hopgood again closed it out with a kill.

“Jamie’s just in the zone right now,” Bevilacqua said. “The last four matches, she’s had double-digit kills and double-digit digs. She’s been unbelievable.”

Game three was the closest of the night. Porter and Hopgood had aces in a strong start that gave the Titans a 10-6 cushion, but West Warwick hung around throughout. After the Titans started to pull away at 23-19, West Warwick won four straight points to tie the game.

But the Titans had come this far. They kept a long rally going on the next point and won it on a Wizards hitting error. With match point, the Titans got a dig from Stamps to keep the ball alive before Brooke Casacalenda finished off the win with a kill.

It was the Titans’ first sweep of the season.

Hopgood led the charge with 15 kills and 10 digs. Chin had 22 assists, six digs and four aces. The Titans finished with 13 aces on the night, and they excelled at keeping balls alive in long rallies.

“For the most part, we’ve been a lot more consistent,” Bevilacqua said. “We still go through spurts where we miss serves, but we’ve been serving a lot better overall and just playing better volleyball.”

If it continues, the Titans could find themselves in the postseason for the first time since 2010. The top six teams in each of D-II’s subdivisions qualify for the playoffs. Toll Gate is currently in seventh in D-II-South, but has a game against sixth-place Warwick Vets tonight. After that, the Titans play 7-4 Cranston West before closing out the season against the Narragansett and Westerly teams that they’ve already beaten.

“We figure 7-9, 8-8 will put us right in the mix,” Bevilacqua said. “We have Vets on Thursday. Hopefully we can go strong into that. One match at a time.”

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