WEST SPRINGFIELD – It’s not about how you start a season, it’s how you finish it.
The Longmeadow volleyball team embodied that Saturday night at West Springfield High School, knocking off No. 2 Amherst in the Western Mass. Class A finals after the Hurricanes had bested them in their two earlier regular season matches. The fourth-seeded Lancers bested Amherst in four sets, 18-25, 25-23, 25-23, 25-16, to claim the title.
“It’s such a game of momentum, and we had all the momentum going in, and somehow we just let it all get away from us,” said Amherst head coach Kacey Schmitt. “I’ve seen this before – you start playing safe and start playing a little tight, and we just weren’t playing our offensive game that we’ve been doing all season.”
The Hurricanes (16-5) struggled to string together their offense, and while their defense was at times incredibly strong – as evidenced by Liza Beigel’s team-leading 36 digs, followed by Nicole Lambert’s 18 digs – it was hard for Amherst to build any momentum against a Longmeadow team that never let them get truly comfortable.
“I think that we could have won, but we just lost our energy a little bit, and got down on ourselves a little bit, and it was really hard to shake,” said Amherst senior Molly Wysocki. “In the other games (against Longmeadow), we were able to get out of that funk… but today it was just a little harder than usual.”
On the offensive side of things, senior spiker Nicole Lambert led the ’Canes with 16 kills, followed by middle blocker Audrey Bowen with 10 and Wysocki with nine. Setter Annabel Ogden finished with 40 assists. The Hurricanes offense was worn down by a Longmeadow side that peaked at exactly the right moment.
“To give credit to Longmeadow – it was hard to put the ball down on them,” said Schmitt. “It wasn’t just that we weren’t playing well, it was that Longmeadow has really improved over the course of the season. We ended up reacting to them more than making them react to us.”
In their earlier playoff wins, Amherst was able to generate energy that seemed infectious, passing the ball well to Ogden, who could then set up her spikers. In Saturday’s final, Longmeadow’s powerful hitters made life difficult for Amherst’s back row, which impacted their ability to run an offense. The Lancers were also able to pinpoint the holes in Amherst’s defense, and there were several more unforced errors than in their earlier postseason contests.
Or perhaps, to put it more succinctly: “We definitely shot ourselves in the foot a little bit,” admitted Schmitt.
It had been awhile since Amherst last appeared in a Western Mass. final – the program hadn’t reached a championship match since 2016 – and there were a few younger players on the Hurricanes’ roster who had never played on this big of a stage before.
“There’s a lot of kids who have never been to a big game like this,” said Schmitt. “(We have) a sophomore setter (Ogden), in her first year on varsity, sophomore libero (Beigel), in her first year on varsity… to go from JV up to the Western Mass. final, they did great. But it’s hard, it’s a big jump. I think it was a little overwhelming in some ways.”
All said, the Hurricanes underclassmen were still able to hold up under the pressure. Beigel and Ogden, both sophomores, played beyond their years, making several critical plays to keep sets two and three close.
While the Hurricanes didn’t walk away with the championship, advancing to Saturday’s Western Mass. final was an important accomplishment and step for the program.
“It’s my senior year, so obviously I wanted to go out with a bang. Even though we didn’t win Western Mass., we still went out with a bang,” said Wysocki. “I’m very proud of my team and everyone on it.”
And as Schmitt pointed out to her team after the match, there’s still more volleyball to play.
“All that being said, we got here, we had a great season, we’re still playing in states, which is what I was telling them in the circle,” said Schmitt, whose team now awaits its seed in the upcoming MIAA Div. 2 tournament. Amherst was seeded 28th in the most recent Power Ranking release. “This is a learning experience, and hopefully they’ll learn from it and come back. I feel bad for the seniors, they really wanted to bring that trophy home.”