The girls’ volleyball team got off to a slow start Thursday night in its first-ever match against Marlborough School, but crushed the Mustangs in four games.

The Mustangs won the first game with a score of 25-17, and it looked like they were going to take the second game as well with their lead of eight points over Harvard-Westlake, but the Wolverines bounced back and began to score very quickly.  The Wolverines won the second game 25-23, the third game 25-8, and the fourth game 25-16.

For much of the first two games, it looked like the match, which was also the volleyball team’s Senior Night, was going to be reminiscent of many of the previous games this season in that the Wolverines would lose by a fair number of points in every or almost every game.  However, the team’s performance drastically improved in the second half of the match.

The catalyst that gave the Wolverines the ability to bounce back from such a large deficit in the second game seemed to be Kaira Muraoka-Robertson ’16, who made an ace serve as well as multiple blocks and key sets.  The Wolverines were also aided overall by better blocking in the later parts of the match.

It was clear from the beginning that the Wolverines were going to win the third game.  By the time that Harvard-Westlake had 20 points, Marlborough only had four points.  The team was able to create such a large lead because of its effective setting, blocking, and serving as well as the fact that the servers hit multiple aces.

The fourth game was much the same as the third game except that the Mustangs performed marginally better.  However, the Wolverines played hard tonight and ended up crushing the Mustangs.

The team’s next game is Friday night at Lakewood High School.