SPS Loses to the Reigning Champions

St. Paul’s hosted Deerfield Academy, the reigning NEPSAC Volleyball champions, in what we hoped would be a match that truly tested our resolve against the best-of-the-best. We were fully aware of the power of their offense and our strategy was to take away their strength through tough serving and strong blocking. We succeeded on both front early on and found ourselves down 10-13 before a tough serving rotation led to 6-pt Deerfield run and a 11-20 deficit. Although the offensive attack of Lily Fitzpatrick ’25 and Manon Lesort ’24 never wavered, the tough serving and smart offensive of Deerfield helped closed out the first set in their favor 13-25. St. Paul’s rebounded well and started the second set by dominating Deerfield both offensively and defensively, building up an early 05-01 lead. But in the third rotation, Deerfield’s libero sliced up our serve receive, earning three aces on a 7-pt run that put Deerfield ahead 08-09. The following rotation saw another 7-point run that opened the lead 17-11. Although St. Paul’s stopped any additional multi-point runs, we were unable to establish our own momentum and the second set fell through our hands 17-25. St. Paul’s came out for the third set with the singular objective of minimizing serve-receive errors that were costly us points and confidence, and in this respect, we were mostly successful. But Deerfield was now on their game and swinging hard, so every point was a battle. But they could not establish a strong lead, and late in the set it was 14-17. In one final episode that was both a credit to Deerfield’s serving and a consequence of our fatigue and low energy, Deerfield put up a 6-pt run to get ahead 14-23 and put the match out of reach, with the final score being 17-25. There are many positives to take away from the match, including a great effort by Anna Liu ’25 who was both our primary setter and an attacker while running our two-setter offense.