PROVIDENCE— It was a heck of a time for the Narragansett High School volleyball team to lose its first set of the season.
The unbeaten Mariners hadn’t tasted any kind of defeat all season, not in a match and certainly not in a set. They were 17-0 in matches and 51-0 in sets when they entered Saturday’s Division IV championship match at Rhode Island College.
And they promptly lost a set, as second-seeded Tiverton opened the finals tilt with a 26-24 win.
It was a stunner and it put the Mariners in unfamiliar territory, but it didn’t shake them up too much.
“We talked about it in practice, that we thought Tiverton should have already beaten us in a set on our home court,” Narragansett head coach Abby Hummel said. “We lucked out and it just went our way. Sometimes, volleyball just does that. We were prepared for a tight set or even a loss in a set. As a team, mentally, we talked about that a lot at practice.”
The Mariners were ready for it – and they responded. The set loss ended up being just a bump in the road as Narragansett beat the Tigers 3-1 to capture the first volleyball championship in school history.
“We knew they were going to come out strong,” senior captain Dylan Bellows said. “We just had to come back stronger.”
The win completed a perfect ride for the Mariners, who dropped to D-IV this season and rolled through the competition. Narragansett had never won a volleyball title, having come closest in 1996, 2004 and 2013, when it was the Division II runner-up.
The 2013 eam also went undefeated en route to the finals. While the current players were in elementary school at the time, the first set loss on Saturday had Hummel and her sister, Holly – the team’s assistant coach – thinking about a similar scene eight years ago.
“We made it in 2013, on an undefeated season and lost in the finals, which we as coaches were a little nervous about today,” Hummel said.
The stage seemed to spark some nerves for the Mariners. They got off to a strong start in the first set, winning the first six points of the match, but the Tigers began to tilt the scales wih a run of five straight points that made it 10-8. The score was tight the rest of the way, until the Tigers broke a 24-24 tie with two straight points. An ace by Claudia Lapointe secured the win.
On the sideline between games, the Mariners regrouped.
“It was nerve-wracking but we talked about it as a team and we knew what we needed to do,” senior captain Sidney Davis said.
The Mariners leaned on their biggest strength – serving – to regain their footing. Lucy Oberheu served up a pair of aces to stake her team to a 6-3 lead in the second set. Alexandra Tuoti followed with a five-point service run that made it 11-4. After Tiverton worked back to 18-16, the Mariners won seven of the final nine points. A kill by Clare Oberheu and a Delia Michailides serve that wasn’t returned locked up the 25-18 win for Narragansett.
“This wasn’t our best game we’ve ever played as a team in terms of serving but they came through in the moments it mattered most,” Hummel said. “They really pushed those serving series when we needed them.”
It happened again in the third set, as Kylee Bennett served a pair of aces in a run of six straight points that blew the game open. The Mariners went on to a 25-14 win, clinching it on a Tiverton hitting error.
In the fourth set, the Mariners surged to the finish, rallying from a 4-3 deficit by winning six of the next seven points. Clare Oberheu and Ellie Langlois had kills as the Mariners went up 9-5. A five-point service run by Davis made it 14-7. Later, Bennett got hot with two straight aces as the Mariners pushed to a 21-10 lead. Livy Waranis capped that run with a kill.
On match points, Clare Oberheu hit a kill to give the Mariners the championship.
“We have great chemistry,” Waranis said. “Everyone just came together. We knew we could do it.”
As they did all season, the Mariners leaned on a full team effort. They used a large rotation, playing to strengths and pushing the right buttons in key spots.
“We do a lot of subs in our rotation,” Hummel said. “They’ve been used to it. The girls really work together with it and are super supportive from the bench to the court.”
The plan helped the Mariners account for the loss of some talented players in last season’s graduating class. The holdovers and newcomers came together and shined.
They ended with a championship.
“It’s awesome,” Davis said. “Especially since it’s our senior year, it really does mean a lot.”
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