AGAWAM — Whenever the prospect of an unbeaten regular season arose during Amherst Regional volleyball practice, the Hurricanes knocked the floor with their knuckles.
“They didn’t want anybody jinxing it,” Hurricanes coach Kacey Schmitt said.
Whether through good luck, or more likely its strong play all season, Amherst entered Monday’s game at Agawam 19-0.
They left it 20-0 after a 25-10, 25-17, 25-12 win.
Nina Hayes sealed it with a left-side kill off the block.
After the ball hit the floor, all six Hurricanes on the court slapped the floor with both hands and embraced as their bench ran to join the circle. Excited jumping followed before Amherst (20-0, 8-0 Eastern League) lined up for the postgame handshake.
“We’ve come this far, so why not try our hardest to finish a perfect season?” senior setter Teya Nolan said.
The Hurricanes have only lost two sets all year, not even enough for a full match, and they didn’t come close Monday.
“We want to keep that momentum going into the postseason and just keep going,” Amherst senior Megan Rice said.
Tough serving allowed Amherst to go on point runs of at least five in every set.
Agawam (13-5, 3-5 Eastern) tied the second set at 4 and again at 10, but a service error gave the Hurricanes the ball back, and they extended that lead to 15-10 before closing the set out 25-17.
“Once we get our serves in we get a really good pass so Teya can set up our hitters so we can attack,” Rice said. “It really starts with serving and passing.”
Nolan led the Hurricanes with five aces and chipped in 26 assists. They had 15 aces as a team.
“They’ve all had really good serves since the beginning of the year. As the year has gone on, they’ve become more consistent,” Schmitt said. “They also are better at knowing when to try to bomb in that really hard serve and when to just get that serve in. A lot of it is making that decision.”
Amherst opened the first set with a 6-0 run after trailing 1-0. Amy Lynch made a solo block in the middle of the net to put Amherst up 12-5 and force an Agawam timeout.
“Thankfully there wasn’t a tremendous amount of pressure tonight, but we still cracked against their solid defense, strong offense,” Agawam coach Kevin Pender said.
Claire Basler-Chang led Amherst with nine kills and 11 digs. Hayes also contributed nine kills and a block.
Agawam hung close at the beginning of the third set at 5-4. Amherst scored the next nine points to lead 14-4, forcing an Agawam timeout at 10-4.
The Hurricanes responded in Set 3 with crisp play after wobbling through tough serve-receiving stretches in Set 2.
“Sometimes it’s hard to stay focused after you win a set so easily because you think you can sit back,” Nolan said “We can’t sit back.”
With its regular season wrapped up, Amherst will await Tuesday’s seeding meeting and the overwhelming likelihood of a No. 1 overall seed in the Division 2 Western Mass tournament.
“With any other group the pressure would worry me. In softball I had a 20-0 team (in 2009), the pressure got to them, I think,” Schmitt said. “This group takes everything really in stride. I think they’re just locked in and looking at the next match. They just seem to be able to put that pressure aside and do their very best.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com.