NASHUA – The Bears have shown time and again this season that when they’re playing their game, they’re just about impossible to stop. Coe-Brown displayed its brand of volleyball all evening in Tuesday’s semifinal on the floor of Nashua High School North. Excellent serving, aggressive defense and contributions from several players led the No. 1 Coe-Brown Northwood Academy boys’ volleyball team (18-0) to a win in straight sets, 25-16, 25-5, 25-17, over No. 4 Pinkerton (14-4), sending the Bears to the program’s first ever championship appearance.
Coe-Brown will play No. 3 Hollis-Brookline (16-2) in Saturday night’s final. The Cavaliers defeated No. 2 Dover, 3-2, in the first semifinal.
The outcome of the second semifinal was never really in doubt. Junior setter Oliver Ford (35 assists) had a nice service run early in the first set to help Coe-Brown take a 5-1 lead. Although the Astros battled back to stay within a couple points of the Bears for most of set one, senior captain and libero Ryan Kouchoukos (17 digs) led a 5-0 run with his service later in the set to help CBNA close it, 25-17.
Senior Will Marshall went on a 10-point service run and juniors Istvan Miko (eight kills, three blocks) and Tyler Fuller (seven kills, four digs, 1.5 blocks) had huge plays at the net to help Coe-Brown build a 12-1 lead in set two before the Bears ultimately won 25-5.
“The guys played great. We were ready. Great energy to start,” Coe-Brown head coach Ryan Smith said. “I thought we did a great job spreading the ball around. A bunch of hitters got involved tonight, and I think our serving and our defense is what set the tone. We tried to force Pinkerton to make plays on its own and let the game come to us.”
Pinkerton took its first lead of the entire match early in the third set, leading 4-1 to start, and eventually took its biggest lead, 10-6, before Coe-Brown called a timeout.
“We were just a little out of sorts,” Smith said. “We used that timeout to calm ourselves down. (Pinkerton) did a good job throwing some different stuff at us and we were in our heads a little bit. We took a timeout just to let them breathe for 30 seconds and to refocus.”
CBNA responded with strong service from Ford and Marshall to tie the set, 13-13, and a kill by Fuller put Coe-Brown back on top, 14-13. Fuller also hit a rocket of a shot down the middle of the floor for an emphatic match point.
“We just wanted to go in and play our game, not focus on mistakes we made,” said senior co-captain and libero Ryan Kouchoukos. “We just went out there and played our game. When we play our game, we’re at our best.”
What do the players consider Coe-Brown volleyball?
“Dive to the floor,” Kouchoukos said. “There are no balls that hit the ground. We want to be everywhere. As a team we agree, if the ball hits the floor, that’s on us. That’s on everybody. Our defense is great, but we have great hitters. The reason our defense can be so great is because we have the best blocking pressure out there.”
Senior co-captain Bruce Marshall (eight kills), fellow senior Ben Silvester (five kills) and junior Luke Corriveau (nine kills) joined Fuller and Miko as the team’s top hitters.
The Bears will need contributions from everyone in order to keep pace with Hollis-Brookline in Saturday’s championship match, which is currently scheduled to start at 4 p.m. in the Nashua HS North gymnasium. The Cavaliers are three-time defending champions, while Coe-Brown is in its first final.
The Bears only made the final four for the first time two years ago, and, 12th year head coach Smith remembers, it was just 10 years ago that his squad was winless.
“We went 0-16 in 2015. To flip it 10 years later, it says a lot about the guys,” Smith said. “Getting other guys involved, guys who want to play. It’s really all them. They’ve wanted this since the first game of the season.”
| 大谷翔平ハイライト
