Earlier in the week, Westfield played in their first game against Linden and swept them with ease 2-0. Coming into this second game of the week, Westfield looked strong and confident in the first set of the game. Senior NYU commit Veer Agawal said coming into the game, “We have been connecting pretty well so far on and off the court, especially considering we have a lot of new players this season.” Head coach Leonard Williams also said, “We know who we are and we know what level of volleyball we can play.”
They started off on the right foot with powerful serving and building a large score gap, quickly gaining a 13-6 lead. Williams said, “In the first set we executed our game plan, we had a great first touch and our passing was really strong especially on serve receive and it gave our setters the opportunity to dictate what happened with the game.”
Elizabeth slowly shrunk the gap throughout, at one point making the score gap 20-18. Although Elizabeth crept back up, Westfield was able to sustain their lead the rest of the set and ended up winning 25-21. Agawal led the way with a multitude of kills, followed up with many crucial blocks at the net and senior libero Daniel Flores had many impressive passes to set up the offense.
In the second set, Elizabeth came out with a purpose and made a statement from the beginning. They started with a 7-4 lead early on, however Westfield caught back up 7-6, and then Elizabeth regained momentum again in the middle of the set scoring 20-16. Elizabeth maintained this lead until the end of the second, winning 25-20.
The third set reflected the same momentum; Elizabeth began in the lead and maintained around a three point lead for the first ten points. After a 10-8 scoreboard, Elizabeth jumped to 14-10 and continued dominating until they eventually took the third set 25-19. Winning 2-1, Elizabeth was able to turn the game around on the Blue Devils and break down their defense. Agawal said, “We stopped communicating as a team and our serving fell apart.”
Williams said, “Things got away from us a little bit in the second and third quarter but it’s never over so we just have to keep pushing. We fell a little short putting our best foot forward.”
Reflecting on the game, senior Kueijiro Tanaka said, “When we mess up we just have to move on. There’s always a next play to do better on so we just have to work on our mentality.”
The Blue Devils are back in action April 4th, away against Summit at 5:15pm. Looking forward, Williams said, “All we can do is learn from our mistakes and get a little bit better everyday and that will add up over time. We have big visions for what we want to do but that starts with tomorrow addressing what we didn’t do well today.”
