Blue Devil Volleyball Sweeps Scotch Plains

Westfield High School's volleyball team held off rival Scotch Plains-Fanwood in two tight games last month in Scotch Plains. Monday afternoon, the two rivals met again with a similar result.

Westfield rallied from several deficits in the first game, and then held off the Raiders to capture a 25-23 decision. Westfield fell behind early in the second game, broke a 16-16 tie and cruised to a 25-19 victory in the second game in the Westfield High gym. The Blue Devils improved to 6-3.

"Our passing was phenomenal today, our back row really had phenomenal passes, they were getting them up to the setter, we were able to run a lot of different plays, so we kind of  used a variety of attack, which was working,'' said head coach Bev Torok. "If you're passing is on your game is on.''

The Blue Devils broke an 18-18 deadlock with a 6-0 run in the first game with strong serving from junior Grace Antonelli.

Antonelli had 12 digs and junior Morgan Bowen had seven kills and a block. Senior Jenelle Abbattista had 11 assists and a block. Senior Emma Partridge had four aces and three kills and junior Jesse Fang had two blocks.

Westfield fell behind 3-0 in the second game, went ahead 10-8, but fell behind 14-12. They trailed as late as 16-15, but a kill by Bowen was followed by a great run of serves by Patridge that stretched the lead to 21-16. A Fang kill made it 24-18 and a Patridge point sealed it.

"There weren't a lot of aces, we have been struggling with serve lately, but I was happy we were steady with it, putting it in bounds and putting it where we wanted,'' said Torok. "We had to play defense and we had to put our offense to work.''

The Blue Devils will play at Union Wednesday. Westfield lost to the Farmers earlier in the season.

That will be a game that will weigh into the seeding next week for the Union County Tournament.