Concord girls volleyball stays calm to sweep Dover in D1 semifinal

DERRY – Many girls volleyball teams have taken the court for the semifinals at Pinkerton Academy and felt the pressure of the big stage.

The Concord High School girls volleyball team wasn’t one of them.

The No. 2 Crimson Tide was as relaxed Wednesday as coach Jonathan Flowers has seen them all season, and they showed it on the court, beating No. 3 Dover 3-0 in the Division I semifinals. Game scores were 25-20, 25-22 and 25-14.

It was the first semifinal appearance for Concord (18-2) since 2005, which was also the last time the Tide won a title. Concord will face No. 4 Hollis Brookline, which beat No. 8 Exeter 3-0 in the other semifinal, for the championship at 5 p.m. on Saturday at Pinkerton.

“We were more nervous about some regular season games and the Salem game (in the quarterfinals),” Flowers said. “This is the first time we’ve been to the semis in 11 years and it was almost like we’d already accomplished something that we wanted to achieve. Now we’re here and let’s just enjoy.”

Concord got a big game from senior Lauren Hatch, who finished 15 kills, while Caitlyn Shea added 20 assists for the Tide, Brenna Vandersea had 10 digs and Rebekah Jauhola-Straight also played well.

Dover (17-4) got 10 kills from Mary Zlotosch and Sarah Quinn added nine kills while Jess Walsh had two blocks and Mia Whitehead had four aces.

But there were too many mistakes for the Green Wave.

“It wasn’t their best game, unfortunately,” Dover coach Colleen Harte said. “To lose is one thing, but to lose when you aren’t playing your best game is hard.

“We should have been able to get into the flow of the game. We’d make one great kill and then an error, or they’d make a kill to stop us. It was tough.”

After losing to the Green Wave 3-1 during the regular season, the Tide tried to mix up what they were doing defensively and Flowers felt it worked to their advantage.

“One of the things we changed was to try to get our big blocker (Hatch) up against their big hitter (Zlotosch), just so that she couldn’t tee off on us,” he said. “Although we didn’t get many blocks on her, I think we got in her head a bit.

“I was worried when they figured out the quick set to (Quinn) in the middle. That was very effective for them, and we were trying to do a couple of things, but then they went away from that.”

With the first game tied at 5, Dover went on an 8-0 run behind the serving of Jadyn Smith to take a 13-5 lead. But Concord came back, starting with a five-point run of its own to get within three, and after the Green Wave went up 14-10, the Tide won the next seven points to take a 17-14 lead.

“We started out strong in that first game, and just made a couple of errors and that kind of got to them,” Harte said. “We couldn’t overcome that.”

In all, Concord won 20 of the final 27 points to rally and take the first game 25-20.

Dover got out to a smaller lead to start the second game, but again, Concord came back to tie it 15-15 before winning five straight points and holding on for the win.

“We’ve had this tendency all year to let off in the third game,” Flowers said. “If we won 3-1, it was usually the third game that we lost, and a lot of it was complacency. They kept their intensity up all the way through the match.”

The third game went back and forth until the Tide won five points in a row and nine of 12 to go up 17-11. Dover got back within four, but Concord took eight of the last nine points to win and advance.