Saugus girls’ volleyball hosted the Pacifica Christian Seawolves at home Wednesday to open the Division 3 playoffs and completed the sweep to advance to the second round.
The Centurions swept the Seawolves in straight sets, 26-24, 28-26, 25-13, and opened the postseason with a win at home.
“A lot of inexperience coming into the playoffs. It’s a different environment,” Saugus head coach Zachary Ambrose said. “It’s a win-or-go-home mentality but they slowly figured it out in that third game and put it all together and (did) what we were trying to do the whole match.”
The opening two sets were a slow start for Saugus as the team was exchanging leads with the Seawolves through most of the game.
The Centurions opened the game with a 10-4 lead following multiple aces from senior opposite hitter Taylor Stires.
But as the set went on, the Centurions were unable to build upon their lead due to hitting errors that kept the Seawolves within range.
Toward the final sequence of the first set, the Seawolves trailed 20-19, which prompted Ambrose to call a timeout.
Following the timeout, the Seawolves tied the set at 24 apiece, but the Centurions rallied to close the set out with freshman Chasiah Omoregie scoring the clinching point off a bump over the net.
Omoregie, who made her postseason debut in the win, tallied seven kills across all three sets and had an impressive performance in the eyes of her head coach.
Ambrose said his team is still young and learning as they play, and that a key to being successful is to just be aggressive and learn as you go.
“There’s no way to navigate it. You just throw them in and that’s where they get their experience,” he said. “I am really proud of our freshman, our libero [Emily Tran], she did a great job and was very solid passing-wise and was great helping run our defense.”
In the second set, the Centurions trailed to open the set 14-9, prompting another timeout from Ambrose following an ace from the Seawolves.
After the stoppage, the Centurions’ offense wasn’t able to take the lead but they were able to say within range as they capitalized off mistakes from Pacifica Christian.
The Centurions then stormed back to tie the set at 19 apiece and took the lead following a long rally that ended in a kill from Kimora Hogains.
“I told her those early errors to just keep swinging, and they will come,” Ambrose said. “She didn’t stop attacking and she fought through it, and then five, six, seven kills in a row really carried us through in that third set.”
Following the kill from Hogains, the teams battled it out in the final stages of the second set and were tied 23 apiece until an ace from Tran.
The Centurions were unable to close it out then but clinched the second set following an attempted kill from Valeria Mejia that Pacifica Christian’s defense couldn’t dig out.
With the opportunity to sweep their first-round opportunity, the Centurions opened the set with a 7-0 lead until the Seawolves recorded their point off a service error from Saugus.
In the end, the Centurions kept the Seawolves at bay throughout the rest of the set and dominated, as Saugus didn’t trail once in the third to complete the sweep.
With the win, the Centurions will play in the second round and host another playoff game.
As for Ambrose, the time between games presents an opportunity to get better and clean up their play as they look to be dominant again in the next round.
“Light practice tomorrow, keep getting good reps and then we’ll watch some film and figure out what we need to do Friday and just prepare,” he said.
The Centurions play on Saturday against the Polytechnic Panthers at Saugus High School with the game set to begin at 5 p.m.
