ROXBURY — If there are two things that are most consistent with the O’Bryant boys volleyball team early on this season, it’s the Tigers’ strong play when closing out a set; and that senior setter Son Nguyen will get the right characters going for the team’s best chance at winning.
Both showed in full form Thursday afternoon, as Nguyen dished out 28 assists to help No. 5 O’Bryant (7-1) overcome a resilient No. 20 Lincoln-Sudbury team for a 3-0 (25-22, 26-24, 25-17) nonleague win. Not one player accrued double-digit kills, as Nguyen spread the wealth beyond typical premier hitter Jonathan Narsjo, who couldn’t get going until the final set against the Warriors’ blockers.
That distribution coupled nicely with the group’s 11 aces, which it used for the final point in two separate sets to hold off some vicious Lincoln-Sudbury rallies.
“That, I really love about our boys. Closing plays, we are winning,” said O’Bryant head coach Paul Pitts-Dilley. “When we are playing our game, we’re playing great volleyball. … Something I’m not ashamed to say that we need to work on (though) is that I don’t think we have played yet, first set to last set, our best volleyball. We are winning and the boys seem to step up at the end of sets, but if we don’t correct this by the end of the year, we are going to pay a price in a June match.”
With Lincoln-Sudbury trying out a 6-2 system around Timmy Kearney (10 assists, three kills) and Oscar Klappenbach (11 assists, four kills) for the first time, the Tigers feasted on rhythms that produced five different 4-0 runs. That included a 7-0 start to the opening frame, which escalated to a lead as large as 14-4 at one point as Nathan Tan (four aces, six kills) and Ayman Blanco (three aces) found flaws in the serve-receive.
Building leads wasn’t much of an issue for O’Bryant in any set, with Ziyou Zhang (eight kills), Desmond Ugoji (five kills, three blocks), Ashton Mei (four kills) and Narsjo (five kills) all chipping in.
“Once we get everyone hot, everyone’s on their toes, everyone’s swinging, putting the ball away; I don’t think we’re stoppable,” Nguyen said. “A triple block on (Narsjo) just means an open net for (Zhang) on the right side. That’s the thing about our team, it’s not not just one player. It’s not a one-man show, we have a full team.”
Instead, maintaining those leads was the challenge.
Whenever the Warriors re-found their focus, they’d battle back just as fiercely as they fell. Kieran Fagan (nine kills), Sebastiano D’Ambrosio (four kills) and Hogan Flechtner played critical roles alongside Klappenbach and Kearney to force a 23-22 deficit in the first and an even 24-24 score in the second.
The slow starts and big runs from O’Bryant were just too much to overcome, however. A pair of errors helped the Tigers take the first set, and Zhang struck for a kill and an ace to close the second. The third didn’t have as much drama when closing it out.