Alongside All-Scholastic outside hitter Matteo Luciani, Lexington middle Justin Cheng has the build, athleticism and talent to be the one of the best players on the court.
But with a 2-1 match lead against Div. 1 power St. John’s Prep on Tuesday, the senior captain was struggling in the fourth set. Mightily.
Cheng missed several blocks in a row. His hits didn’t consistently make it over the net. His serve didn’t make it over the net. The opposing Eagles were winning the frame to threaten a fifth set, so Lexington head coach Jane Bergin took him out for a quick conversation.
“I said ‘Look it, you’ve got to get it together. You can be the best player out there but you’re beating yourself up right now, and this is not helping. You’ve got to calm down,’” Bergin recalled. “I subbed him right back in, and honest to God, he gets these two giant blocks in a row. Then he blasts this ball on a quick middle, the ball hits the one-spot and then flies up onto the wall. It was monster. Really, it was unreal. His comeback was great.”
That sequence before taking the fifth set 15-12 as part of a 3-2 victory resembles the Minutemen’s focus the last couple of weeks.
In a year Bergin has declared the Div. 1 field as wide open on numerous occasions, her 13-5 Lexington group is in the mix. Two wins over Winchester to secure the Middlesex League title, as well as impressive nonleague wins over St. John’s of Shrewsbury and St. John’s Prep, show how strong the Minutemen can be. Mistake-ridden losses to Wayland, Milford and Acton-Boxboro, coupled with falling to Needham and Cambridge, reveals a frustrating flip side.
There isn’t any shame in losing to those teams. Bergin is right to call the volleyball scene wide open this season. But the Minutemen players came into the year with grand aspirations for a state title, and the way they lost a few of those games left them feeling they should have won.
Frustration reached a boiling point after the 3-2 collapse against title-hungry Acton-Boxboro on May 1. Their No. 12 spot in the Div. 1 power rankings was low compared to expectations, and it would go on to fall to as low as No. 15. Lexington needed to rally, and it seemed like it didn’t know how to.
“After we lost to Acton-Boxboro, the wheels fell off the bus,” Bergin said. “It’s hard to get high school kids to put negativity behind them in a split second. That’s coaching I think in general. More so with us, we just really had a problem with that. And when we started dropping, the real perspective hit us.”
After spending all of practice a couple days later in a classroom to gain a better understanding of each other on a personal level, Lexington is reinvigorated.
There’s little reason to believe the Minutemen couldn’t make a deep run in the tournament. Tammer Haddad and Cheng have an incredible reach and athletic ability in the middle. First-year starting setter Jack Fan, who Bergin feels is about as competitive as they come, has improved his decision-making. Luciani needs little introduction as a premier hitter in the state, especially after dropping 33 kills against St. John’s Prep.
The parts just needed a finer-tuned direction, and a new motto of playing “smarter, not harder” has simplified the game for them. Bergin felt like she could “fill her tip jar” if she had a dollar for every time she said those words in the game against St. John’s Prep. Cheng recalled at least three times she said it in practice two days later.
Up until losing to Cambridge 3-2 to close out the regular season, a six-game win streak after the loss to A-B shows it’s definitely working wonders. As of the latest power rankings, Lexington rose to No. 10.
“We feel like we’re getting it going at the right time, we’re playing our best volleyball,” Cheng said. “We’ve gotten to the point where we’re feeling pretty confident. … We definitely learned (from the losses) there are a lot of good teams this year. For us, we really want to focus and take that next step.”
“It’s absolutely different, it’s like a different season,” Bergin added. “To have the kids buy into it and then actually be able to execute that – that mental perspective of the game – it’s huge. Not just for volleyball, this is more of a life lesson, too. … Mentality is it. It controls everything that you do in life.”