Veritas opens with win over rival CSLA

by: Seth Gordon
Published: 9/17/2010

Veritas head coach Rachel Schippers emphasized serve and serve-receive heading into this season and the Vanguard excelled in both areas Tuesday to earn a 3-0 victory over crosstown rival C.S. Lewis Academy.

Maureen Lynch (Photo by Seth Gordon) Kelsey Hutchins led Veritas with five aces and Maureen Lynch and Taylor Cuddeford added four apiece as the Vanguard registered an .889 service percentage and hit 84 percent on their serve receive in a 25-17, 25-21, 25-16 victory.

“With serve, the girls know that is the one thing in volleyball that you can control,” Schippers said. “There’s no one else you have to rely on. It’s just you and the ball. I don’t think there should be any errors in serving, but that’s a goal that we have as a team. And we can do it. We’ve got some good servers.”

Offensively, Veritas turned to outside hitter Lynch often and she delivered with a team-high nine kills.

“We have some quality outside hitters,” Schippers said. “We’re trying to incorporate the opposite and the middle, and sometimes if the pass isn’t that good, it’s easy to force it outside and make the blockers work.”

The Vanguard controlled all three games, but had to withstand a few strong rallies from the Watchmen, especially in the second set, where C.S. Lewis fell behind 17-8 before clawing back to as close as 20-19.

“I was happy with their mental focus,” Schippers said. “Being such young players, it’s easy to get frazzled in the heat of the moment. This was our first game of the season, but I was happy with how they handled themselves.”

First-year C.S. Lewis coach Peter Brady said he was pleased with how his team handled the large deficits against the Vanguard.

“In the third set, we were down 16-9 and I told them to get a stop, get control with serving and take some points,” Brady said. “And they stopped it, got control, served and lost it. But they reset and I think that will turn into composure and offense in the future.”

Brady said he was very impressed with Veritas and compared the Vanguard favorably to perennial Casco League powerhouse Jewell, who beat the Watchmen 3-1 in their season opener.

“They’ve been practicing,” Brady said. “The only reason we kept up with them was heart stuff.”

On Thursday, Veritas split its Casco League three-way match, beating Oregon School for the Deaf 25-3, 25-9, 25-11 and losing 20-25, 18-25, 22-25 to Falls City.

The Vanguard (2-1) again served well versus OSD and hit .414 with 16 kills as a team in the win, but struggled to run their offense against the Mountaineers.

Falls City also jumped out to an 11-3 lead in the third before Veritas staged a comeback. Cuddeford led the Vanguard with eight kills and Cuddeford and Lynch combined for 28 digs and six aces in the loss.

“Falls City stopped attacking the ball and tipped almost every ball that was set,” Schippers said. “It took us a while to adjust to that offensive change, but once we did we were able to pull within a couple of points to finish the match. We had some great momentum toward the end of the match and it’ll definitely be a goal of ours to adjust to the wide level of play throughout the league.”

Veritas will host St. Paul on Tuesday before traveling to play the Bluejays on Thursday.