Girl’s Volleyball Takes Down Sterling 2-1 Thursday

In a much-anticipated matchup, the girl’s volleyball team welcomed the Sterling Silver Knights (16-13) to Cinnaminson (15-10) for what turned out to be an emotional, statement win for the Pirates in three sets, 2-1, on Thursday afternoon.

“Their enthusiasm, their fight, their desire; it all came through and they stayed composed like I asked,” head coach Sara Skvir said. “They didn’t get rattled. They did exactly what they needed to do and I am very, very proud.”

Box Score

The opening set was dominated from the opening serve to the final point by the Silver Knights. Sterling roared to a 7-0 lead before the Pirates could put a point on the board. Cinnaminson trailed by as much as 11 in the first set before Sterling put up the victory 25-14, matching their largest lead.

“We started out down 7-0 and it is hard to come out of that,” Skvir said. “We made a lot of bad decisions, we had a couple service errors. They dumped the ball in and we weren’t covering each other. Everything went wrong.”

The second set was a back-and-forth affair that saw the Pirates blow a six-point lead after going up 19-13 following four straight points.

“I went back to serving with Gia (Trzaska) first,” Skvir said. “The pre-game talk I said we’ve got to make a lot of changes. We made too many errors. We have to play smarter. Pick up on their dumps. They took it easy and we came out strong.”

There were nine ties and seven lead changes in the second set. Cinnaminson went down 24-23, but persevered to score the next three points to win the set 26-24.

“We realized that we can win and that this is a game that is ours to win,” Ally Herron said.

The third set saw two different volleyball teams on the court. Cinnaminson was dominant from opening serve to match point, while Sterling struggled much like the Pirates did in the opening set.

“We had to keep our mental game up, we got our serves in and we made their defense work,” Herron said.

The Pirates largest lead of the third set was seven points at the victory mark and they trailed by as many as five points. After going down 15-10, the Pirates rolled off eight straight points to take an 18-15 lead that they would not relinquish.

“We’ve been in that situation before and as soon as I came into the huddle I said, ‘Celebrate now and then it stops because game three is about to start and we need to be focused,'” Skvir explained.

“I reminded them of the Camden Catholic game. We went to the third set and e thought we had them and we completely crumbled. Today is going to be a different outcome. Show me that you’re a different team. That you have the mental capabilities to go out there and play strong.”

The Pirates won the third set 25-18 en route to the 2-1 match victory.

“We weren’t willing to give the game to them,” Herron said. “They had to fight for it to beat us and we weren’t going down without a fight.”

Girl’s volleyball returns to the court on Monday, October 19 to take on Collingswood at 3:45pm in an away match.