BELCHERTOWN — Cara McKenzie established herself in the first set of the match .
After that, Taconic was in for a long night in the opening round of the Western Massachusetts Division 2 Tournament.
The senior opened the Belchertown girls volleyball team’s 25-13, 25-14, 25-18 win over the Braves Thursday with a kill. She finished with 14 kills, four blocks and three aces.
“When she gets going, they all pick up their level to where she’s bringing them,” Belchertown coach Scott Poulin said. “Sometimes we have to put our team on her back, and she’s done a really good job when we’ve needed it.”
Fifth-seeded Belchertown’s win combined with a 3-0 win by No. 4 Ludlow over No. 13 Putnam gives the Orioles (17-4) an opportunity to avenge one of their four regular season-losses.
The Lions (16-5) won a five-set fist fight on Oct. 21, which likely played into their receiving the fourth seed and a home game. A date and time for the quarterfinal match in Ludlow has yet to be determined.
“We’re really excited,” McKenzie said. “We just want revenge.”
McKenzie consistently made plays against No. 12 Taconic in the rare moments when Belchertown looked vulnerable. Her second kill of the match erased Taconic’s only lead of the first set and tied it at 2.
She put the Orioles up 9-7 in Set 2 with a transition kill off a Taconic overpass, and extended Belchertown’s lead to 14-9 with a similar attack.
“It’s just really exciting as a hitter to just get a ball back over because you know most likely with a good pass you’re going to be able to run what you want to run,” McKenzie said. “That’s really fun.”
Taconic (7-12) pushed the Orioles at the start of the second and third sets. The Braves led 4-2 in the second set and by as many as four at 13-9 in the third set.
“We were right in every game until the end — until they saw we were leading, and I think they were nervous about that or something,” Taconic coach Jennifer Doerle said.
McKenzie had something to do with it. She picked up her 12th kill to make it 13-10 in the third set then made a block two points later to pull the Orioles within 13-12. McKenzie strung together two kills and a block later in the set to put Belchertown ahead 19-14.
“We really wanted to focus on keeping the energy up the whole time and competing the whole time,” McKenzie said. “I think we did that really well.”
Once Belchertown regained the lead in every set, effective serving ensured its leads. The Orioles finished with nine aces in the match.
Allie Lukas had five of them and only two serving errors.
“I just try to zone out everything around me,” Lukas said. “I listen to Scott about where he wants me to put the ball and I’ll try to get it there pretty much every time.”
She hit her marks more often than not. Lucas served 88.2 percent of her opportunities in and only made two service errors. She held serve for an average of 3.67 points per set, which included a seven-point run in the first set that saw Belchertown move from tied at 2 to up 9-2.
“I can’t speak enough about how well she served. I was giving her spots, she was hitting the spots,” Poulin said. “She did an awesome job.”