The boys’ volleyball team closed out a successful regular season with a hard-fought five-set victory over the Sherwood Warriors on Wednesday, May 3. The first two sets were tight as expected with Sherwood taking the first 30-28 and the Wildcats responding 30-28 in the second. In the third set, the Warriors pulled away and never looked back, winning 25-17. However, the Wildcats showed resilience once again, taking the fourth set 25-11 and then closing out the match with a 15-17 fifth-set victory. The match improved the team’s record to 10-1.
The Wildcats have responded well since their first loss of the season to Churchill with four wins in a row. During that streak, the volleyball team has taken down Whitman 3-2, BCC 3-1, Magruder 3-0 and Sherwood 3-2.
“After our loss to Churchill, we realized that if we wanted to have a good chance at getting a good spot for this postseason playoffs we would have to build some momentum to carry on into our next games. It’s important to have momentum or else you lose motivation and we don’t want that,” senior Guy Saltsman said.
A common theme throughout the season for the Wildcats has been resilience, winning three games in which they were down 2-1.
“Our resilience has definitely helped us to win games, not allowing ourselves to compound our mistakes which I believe makes us a greater threat in the playoffs because we won’t just roll over if we go down at any point,” junior opposite hitter Evan Geiss said.
With the team’s performance during the regular season, the Wildcats earned the three seed in the MCPS playoffs, only behind Churchill who is the first seed and Blair who is the second seed. In the first round, the team will face off against Blake. Earlier in the season, they took down the Bengals 3-0. However, in the playoffs, anything can happen with a team only needing one strong game.
These playoff games are going to take a winning mentality and the ability to work together.
— Joseph (Joe) Morris
Despite playoff matchups being tough, the team remains confident that they can pull out the victory and advance to the second round.
“As long as we don’t get ahead of ourselves and continue to play our game, I believe a 3-0 win should be the outcome here too,” Geiss said.
The matchup against Blake will take place Monday, May 8 at home, starting at 5:30 p.m.
