Mariners Cling to Leads, Sweep Tiverton Volleyball

The Narragansett girls’ volleyball team did its best impression of the 2011 Red Sox on Friday night, in a not-so-positive way.

Despite sweeping the Tiverton Tigers (3-2, 3-2 Division II-South), the Mariners (4-1, 4-1 Division II-South) almost squandered more than 10 point leads in the first two games. The final scores of all three suggested much closer contests: 25-21, 25-21 and 25-18.

Narragansett head coach Joni Stern-Lonczak said it has been an unfortunate trend with her team this year.

“It’s happened every game, we’ve had at least one game where the passing goes awry,” she said. “Sometimes it’s contagious when you miss a whole bunch.”

The Mariners’ passing abandoned them near the end of the first and second games, both times when Tiverton’s Jessica Drolet was serving.

Drolet had a ridiculous string of serves late in the second game. With her team trailing 23-9, the Tigers scored 11 straight points, six on aces by Drolet.

Tiverton head coach Kerri Russo said Drolet, just a junior, had incredible potential.

“I have to remind her to focus a lot, since she wants the ball every time,” Russo said. “She was able to maintain her focus on those serves.”

Drolet was not on any All-Division volleyball teams last year. However, Russo said her game is steadily improving because of her athletic prowess – she was second team All-Division II in softball.

Narragansett’s passing game collapsed in the second game, as they couldn’t return Drolet’s serve, couldn’t block three kills, and couldn’t return another easy ball.

However, an error on a return by Tiverton finally gave the Mariners back the ball. The teams traded errors, before Narragansett junior Hannah Maymon finally ended the set with a kill.

Narragansett sophomore Gabrielle Leclerc and Maymon formed an unstoppable one-two punch for the Mariners that bailed them out in the later portions of both games. Leclerc finished with nine kills, Maymon with eight.

Russo said the Mariners presented a good challenge to her team, citing Maymon and Leclerc specifically.

“They haven’t seen those really good hitters, so I saw panic at times,” she said. “This is definitely a very good team.”

Outside of the struggle to pass efficiently, Stern-Lonczak said she was happy with how her team played.

“I’m very pleased with how things are going,” she said, adding that the team had great chemistry and was easy to coach. “They’re a nice group of girls, and they like each other.”

Stern-Lonczak said she hoped Narragansett’s next game, hosting Rogers (1-3, 1-3 Division II-South) at 6 p.m. Tuesday, would offer a lower-stress environment to work on passing and substitution patterns. The Vikings have only won three sets all year, which came in their victory against winless Middletown.

Tiverton faces a much tougher challenge – The Tigers host the undefeated defending Division II champion Exeter-West Greenwich at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Scarlet Knights are 4-0 in Division II-South, and 6-0 overall.