Unbeaten Needham boys hand Brookline first volleyball loss

In yet another significant early season test for the Needham boys volleyball team Monday afternoon, a familiar recipe of timely execution and overpowering hits propelled it past a potential playoff foe it could face down the road.

Ben Putnam and Nolan Leary packed a punch with every strike, feeding off an electric energy inside a small gym to help the Rockets (5-0) coast to a 3-0 (25-18, 25-17, 25-13) win over previously unbeaten Brookline (5-1) in the Bay State Conference. Putnam (17 kills) and Leary (7 kills, ace, 4 blocks) benefitted from another solid passing outing from Raymond Weng (27 assists), continuing to overcome inexperience to play with more discipline and confidence.

Combine that with a few droughts in discipline from the Warriors, and Needham ran away in the programs’ first meeting this year.

“I thought we were much more disciplined today than we were last week,” said Rockets head coach Dave Powell. “I thought there was a lot more hitting discipline and patient hitting, which we’ve been trying to stress. … I thought (Weng) set really well tonight, and I thought we were passing better. We were in system more, which made (Putnam) hard to block.”

Brookline showed the ability to outmatch Needham for quite a few stretches, but all proved to be brief as miscues plagued the squad.

For as powerful as Putnam and Leary played with a relentless attack, the Warriors held strong for a few moments to limit the damage behind the athleticism of Zach Orlando-Milbauer (8 kills), Julian Vesneske and Toby Mendels up front. Even as Putnam racked up seven kills in the first game and five kills in the next two, Brookline remained in striking distance through sound execution and solid play from Corey Szeto.

But after rallying to a 10-10 score in the first game, Needham went on an 8-2 run off a slew of Warrior errors en route to a 25-18 result. Brookline led 13-11 in the second game until a 7-0 Rockets run – all off Warriors miscues – resulted in a 25-17 loss, and then it couldn’t keep pace in an 8-6 score to start the third game en route to a 25-13 setback for the sweep.

Both teams played with grit all the way through, but Needham just had a little more discipline and focus by the end of a playoff-like matchup.

“We knew they were a good team coming in, and the biggest thing was to keep the ball in play,” Leary said. “It was a playoff atmosphere. We live off that, we feed off it. We knew coming in it was a playoff game. … We play off that tremendously.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3byMhfe