NEEDHAM — It was just five weeks ago that the top-ranked Needham boys volleyball traded blows with fellow Div. 1 contender Natick, and needed clutch performances late in a couple sets to secure a tight sweep.
With a stellar serve-receive and another big performance from senior outside hitter Ethan McCarron on Tuesday, the highly-anticipated second round between the two ended much more convincingly for the two-time defending Div. 1 champs.
As Natick struggled to build momentum despite trading points early on in each set, the unbeaten Rockets (16-0) surged through the gates en route to a 3-0 (25-14, 25-17, 25-19) win against another Bay State Conference juggernaut.
Owen Ching and Jonathan Ochalla played exceptionally to essentially provide Needham with two top-level liberos, leading the home team to what both head coaches felt was a huge game for the Rockets’ serve-receive.
Needham got its typical dose of offensive contributions across the board off of that, led by McCarron’s 16 kills and Raymond Weng’s 10 kills with 19 assists.
“We received serve better today than we did the first time we played them,” said Needham head coach Dave Powell. “When you can pass serve and you’re in system, that helps. … They were scoring and they’d come back and serve pretty tough, we’d pass serve and hit at a pretty high clip.”
Part of what makes Natick so dangerous is how difficult it is to force it out of system. But in the first two sets, Needham made it hard for the RedHawks to gain momentum by limiting their offensive options while Natick faced a bevy of dangerous Rockets hitters.
Branch Barnes and Harrison Landry connected for a handful of kills in the first set, but all but two of the points Natick picked up was followed by a side out. Weng dished five assists and buried five kills alongside a solid frame from Devin Dellamarggio (17 assists) as Needham got hot fast, and several RedHawks errors plagued them in response.
“We knew they’d be a lot better (this time) as they always do,” McCarron said. “We knew we had to come out of the gates strong, and it worked. … Starting out right away is really important. We want to be automatic.”
Natick started to find its normal rhythm in the second and third sets, keeping pace through Needham’s first 15 points before the Rockets built big runs. Matt Salerno and middles John Carroll and Simon Pedrelli found more success around the RedHawks’ two setters, and they all looked much more comfortable in Needham’s gym despite struggling to collect more than two points in a row.
As the RedHawks dialed up their level of play, though, so did McCarron.
With six kills in the second set, the senior paired with Brian Cloonan (six kills) and Luke Lorence (eight kills) to turn a 10-9 lead into 21-14 over the next 16 points. Natick rallied a bit, but McCarron and Lorence buried the final three points for the 25-18 win.
The third set then saw Natick lead as late as 13-12, but it struggled with service errors and McCarron smashed four kills in a 9-4 run to give Needham a 20-17 advantage. Momentum was all in favor of the Rockets by that point, closing a 25-19 set for the victory.
“(McCarron) kept raising his level,” Powell said. “Ethan played great, he played really well. Devin Dellamarggio set really well. I thought (Ching) and (Ochalla), it’s like we had two liberos on the court today … both of them played like big-time liberos and that really helped.”