Titans surge in final two games, stay in playoff hunt with win over Vets

Posted 10/21/14

With its playoff hopes hanging in the balance, the Toll Gate girls’ volleyball team stormed back on Thursday night to stay alive in Division II-South.

The Titans rallied from a two-games-to-one …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Titans surge in final two games, stay in playoff hunt with win over Vets

Posted

With its playoff hopes hanging in the balance, the Toll Gate girls’ volleyball team stormed back on Thursday night to stay alive in Division II-South.

The Titans rallied from a two-games-to-one deficit against rival Warwick Vets to win 3-2, taking the winner-take-all fifth game by a 15-10 margin.

The rivals are now separated by just a half-game in the standings in the race for the final II-South playoff spot. The ’Canes are 5-7 and in sixth place in the division, while Toll Gate is 5-8. The top six teams qualify.

That’s what made Thursday so important. With a loss, the Titans would have guaranteed themselves a sub .500 record and would have had to win out – plus get help – in order to catch the ’Canes.

Now, though they still need a little help from Vets in order to reach the postseason, the chance is still very much alive for the Titans.

“I basically told them we have nothing to lose,” said Toll Gate head coach Andrew Bevilacqua. “We had our losses at the beginning of the season, and it can only be a plus if we win matches. If we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down fighting and try to spoil some other people’s chances.”

The Titans, after starting out 0-6, have now won five of their last seven matches. By beating Vets, Toll Gate has now avenged three of its early season losses. Vets beat the Titans 3-0 on Sept. 18.

The ’Canes, meanwhile, have gone in the opposite direction. After opening the season 3-1, they’re just 2-6 since and are desperately trying to hang on to the final playoff berth.

“The problem for us is now we need to really step it up,” McGarry said. “It’s crucial for us to get wins if we want to make playoffs. We can’t go into another match and let them drop. We’ve got to come out and got to fight.”

Vets struggled in the opening game, which Toll Gate captured 25-19, and then appeared destined for a 2-0 hole when it fell behind 18-15 in game two.

But the ’Canes came back, winning the next 10 points in a row to earn a 25-18 win. They pulled a similar stunt in a 25-21 game three win, before falling 25-19 in game four to force the fifth game.

“I thought my girls played well,” McGarry said. “I’m not disappointed in the way we played. I think game four and game five they started getting a little nervous when they shouldn’t have. You can tell them not to be nervous, but it’s all in how they feel when they’re out there and you can’t really change that.”

The match itself was predicated on long runs by both teams, even in the final game.

Toll Gate went up 3-0 on a pair of kills from Jamie Hopgood and another from Taylor Payton, then extended that lead up to 12-5.

Just points from defeat, the ’Canes came back, winning three points in a row and forcing the Titans into a timeout.

“Game five, it could have been a washout,” McGarry said. “They fought back and they didn’t let it get to them.”

Toll Gate did regroup, though, taking the next point out of the break when Brooke Casacalenda won a battle at the net. Vets got as close as 14-10, but a Hopgood kill ended the match.

“Even though we’re on the side that we won both games, we’ve still got to come out and play strong,” Bevilacqua said of his team’s mindset entering the fifth game. “Anything can happen in game five. We were up 12-4 and they made a run. We just want to make sure that we close the game out strong.”

The early games were equally defined by runs. Toll Gate led only 16-15 in game one before winning six points in a row to go up 22-15 and take control. Most of the points came on Vets errors.

In the second game, with Toll Gate ahead 18-15, Vets won a point on a Titans’ error and then sent Liz Iadevaia to the service line. She served nine consecutive winning points to close out the match. Emily Walason added a kill during the run.

Iadevaia continued her impressive run of serving, where she has been at 100-percent over the last two games.

“Considering that at most times I have one senior on the court, sometimes two, I’m not disappointed,” McGarry said. “We’ve come a long way. We were evenly-matched tonight.”

In the third game, Toll Gate used steady play from Ashley Chin, Hopgood and Alyssa Mathews to open up an 18-15 lead, only to see it quickly evaporate. Vets won seven of the next 10 points to take its first lead of the game at 22-21. Shannon McCarthy registered a block and a kill, and Iadevaia had a big hit across the court.

The ’Canes didn’t let up, winning the final three points – giving them 10 of the last 13 in the game – to win.

One problem for the Titans was their serving. In the two games that Toll Gate lost, it missed nine serves. In the three games it won, it missed just six total serves.

“I’m sure we probably missed about 10 serves between those two games,” Bevilacqua said. “The entire night I was just telling them, ‘We’ve got to make serves. We’re missing serves, we’re playing down to them.’ As time went on we started making more serves, we started bringing more energy.”

In the fourth game, Toll Gate pulled away with the score tied at 16. It won the next four points, capped with a Hopgood ace, and it eventually went up 23-18, giving it a streak of seven out of nine. It won two of the next three to force the deciding fifth game.

“Games four and five it was like a totally different team out there,” Bevilacqua said. “Girls diving for balls, keeping balls alive. It was just exciting volleyball.”

Hopgood led Toll Gate with 21 kills and 19 digs, while Faith Porter had 24 digs of her own. Chin had 26 assists.

Shannon McCarthy had six kills and seven blocks in the middle for Vets.

Both teams will now hit the home stretch hoping to make enough noise to reach the playoffs. Its also conceivable that both teams could make the playoffs, as West Warwick, which is 6-6, could fall to the No. 7 spot in the division.

Toll Gate has the easier schedule to close out the year. It hosts 8-4 Cranston West today at 6:30 p.m., before taking on one-win Narragansett on Thursday. It’s at two-win Westerly next Tuesday.

Vets hosts unbeaten East Greenwich today at 6 p.m., and then has 8-4 Pilgrim on Thursday. On Friday, it hosts West Warwick and then is at Cranston East Tuesday.

The ’Canes have already lost to all four of those teams this season.

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here