Girls Volleyball Loses to Guilford, Squashes West Haven

It was either feast or famine last week for the Amity girls volleyball team. After being stunned 3-0 by Guilford (25-22, 25-21, 25-20), the Lady Spartans bounced back to blast West Haven 3-0 (25-4, 25-9, 25-14). With that split decisions, Coach Paul Thees’ spikers now have a 7-4 record and need only one more victory to qualify for both the Southern Connecticut Conference and state tournaments.

According to Thees, “Guilford came in with a 7-1 record but after beating us, they lost to Branford, a team we had previously defeated—go figure! Quite honestly, we had a terrible night against Guilford. My kids didn’t play well at all. I think they walked in figuring they would win. Except for our serving, there wasn’t one phase of the game that we played well. Guilford doesn’t really have any outstanding players, but for some reason, they intimidated us. We played very cautiously—without any fight.”

As usual, serving was a bright spot for the Lady Spartans as they were good on 57 of 60 offerings (95%). Jessica Hoffer was 17-17 (with five aces) and Caitlyn strong was good on all seven of her tries (with one ace). Hoffer also recorded a team-high eight digs. Allison Denny recorded five kills and her sister Rebecca, added four kills. Setter Alyssa Mirmina chalked up 11 assists and four kills.

“Our passing was horrible against Guilford. With a good pass, its tough to get a good set and without a good set, it’s tough to get a good hit,” Thees said. “I expected us to give Guilford a good game, but we just didn’t show up that night and I don’t know why.”

It was a completely different story when Amity visited West Haven on Thursday night. The Lady Spartans landed a season-best 98.6% of their serves (71 of 72). Seeing his team cruise past the Blue Devils in the first  game, Thees went to his bench and ended up playing 14 girls.

Amity’s top servers were Claire Foster (13 of 13 with 2 aces), Rebecca Denny (14 of 14 with 4 aces) and Dana Blydenburg (12 of 12 with 4 aces). Jessica Malinconico and Kristin Post each drilled home team-best seven spikes. Freshman Zoe Moscato came off the bench to land six kills. Strona chipped in with eight digs.

According to Thees, “This was a big improvement over our play against Guilford two days earlier but quite honestly, West Haven also didn’t put together much offense. I just wish we played a fraction of how well we played against West Haven when we played Guilford.”