Wildcats volleyball stays unbeaten as season begins

Courtney Picard sets up a pass in a recent practice for the Wildcats.

LEE – With impressive victories to open the season over Monument Mountain and Lenox to start the year, the Wildcats volleyball team continued on their road of perfection with wins over Mt. Greylock and a tough Pittsfield team in the last week.

After beating Mt. Greylock 3-0, Lee escaped a deep-serving Pittsfield team to overtake the Generals, 18-25, 25-13, 25-16 and 25-19.

“We are really starting to gel offensively,” said 10th year Lee Head Coach John Warriner, whose girls moved to 5-0 on Tuesday night.

The Wildcats use a 6-2 line with the use of a defensive libero, to offset their substitution patterns and limit the opponent’s offense.

Against Pittsfield, Warriner had to adjust his back line in order to combat the Generals’ deep serves, which was giving the Wildcats fits in their passing game.

“Pittsfield was serving deep and our passes were short so as a result our offense never starting clicking,” Warriner said. “Once our middle hitters like Katie Moran [stepped up], who was unstoppable out of the middle, they had no answer for our middle attack.

“We backed up our serve and receive and that gives our passers a little more time to get the ball back up to the net,” Warriner added.

The Wildcats will go as far as their setters will take them with Moran and Lauren Richardson. Moran finished the Pittsfield game with 24 kills, four aces, five blocks and 11 assists, while Richardson had seven kills, seven aces and 18 assists.

In the Greylock game, the Wildcats fought off an early 18-22 deficit before escaping with a 26-24 win in the first game, leading to the eventual three-game sweep.

“Greylock was a real pressure cooker, once we came back, they laid down, as we relied on our setters [Moran and Richardson], who have been terrific,” Warriner said.

Also making key contributions this season for the Wildcats are freshman Courtney Picard and upperclassmen Sam Farina, Alyssa Kelly and Jessica Zarbato.

Warriner, who has groomed the Lee volleyball program for the last 10 years, appears to have a real contender in this year’s squad.

“We started with nine girls who came out the first year,” Warriner said. “Every year (after the first two), we have had north of 30 come out every year.”

Warriner, along with his wife Janet, works on developing the program by offering the girls Zumba classes and yoga as well as a summer camp for the area volleyball players that also brings back a lot of the volleyball alumni in the area to help promote the sport, from Pittsfield to Lenox and Lee down to Great Barrington.

With the growth of volleyball in the area, Warriner hopes to be a front-runner in this year’s western Massachusetts tournament – at least until they play reigning state champion Frontier.

“I know we would be a contender this year, but we have some things to iron out,” Warriner said. “I am not happy with our transition game from defense to offense; that needs to be more effective.”

Tonight, the Wildcats will see their toughest foe in St. Joe’s, as they go up against longtime coach Sean McDonald.

“It should be a good match,” said Warriner.

Posted by Tim Davis on September 20, 2012. Filed under High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry