The girls volleyball team all took a trip to go see a Harvard collegiate volleyball game.
This is something that Coach Michael Fineran has done for a while, taking his team to college volleyball games such as Bentley so that they can witness advanced players in action with their own eyes. Fineran says that the goal of bringing his team out to watch a Harvard game was for his players to “see for themselves how elite athletes warm up and play.”
His connections to his cousin, an athletic trainer for Harvard’s football team, made it easier for him to get access to the Harvard team’s volleyball schedule, and since most college volleyball games are free, that gave them an easy entrance.
Upon their arrival to the gym in Harvard, where the game would be held, the first thing the Everett players noticed was that Merrimack, the opposing team, had already started warming up. Merrimack is a Division 1 school which meant that the Everett team would be witnessing two Division 1 schools going head-to-head and against one another.
“Each position did different drills according to their part on the part on the court,” junior varsity team member Abigail Falkowski said.
Both Merrimack and Harvard were incredible schools with exceptional volleyball players, so it came to no one’s surprise of how evenly matched and leveled each set would be. In the first set Merrimack got to 25 points while Harvard was 4 points behind, which put Merrimack in the lead. But then Harvard won the next two sets bringing the score from 1-0 with Merrimack in the lead, up to 2-1 with Harvard in the lead.
“The other team had chemistry and communication,” junior varsity team member Elora Philippe noticed. “Even on bad sets, they managed to fail together, work together and come back as a team together.”
As they entered the fourth set, Merrimack had got to 25 points once again while Harvard was 5 points behind, which brought the score up from 2-1 to 2-2 meaning that whichever team got to 15 points first would win the whole game.
It was definitely a close game but in the end, but Harvard got to 15 points while Merrimack was 8 points behind. This meant that the team that the Everett girls volleyball team had rooted for triumphantly ended up winning in the end.
The Harvard football team’s athletic trainer (Fineran’s cousin) put Everett’s team in touch with the Harvard team’s assistant coach, Christina Cornelius, and arranged a way for them to meet with the team after the game. The Everett girls volleyball team got a photo with the winning team of the match between Harvard and Merrimack.
Throughout the entire time that he was here, Fineran observed the way that Harvard played and the way that they practiced. “We’ve added some of their drills to our practices,” Fineran said.
Fineran believes the trip was a success and allowed his team to improve in a positive way. “I couldn’t have planned it better,” he said. “We saw a lot of volleyball. We saw both teams react to the highs and lows, and the team we were rooting for won. It was also a good way for our team to bond away from our own gym, and it was perfect weather in the heart of Harvard Square.”
