By By Howard Herman,The Berkshire Eagle

Copyright berkshireeagle

DALTON — Four days ago, the Wahconah volleyball team came up on the short end of a five-set match. Monday night, the Warriors used that knowledge to win a five setter of their own.

Visiting Mount Greylock had a 15-point lead before winning the fourth set. But in the fifth, Wahconah took the lead for keeps when Taea Cunagin had one of her 14 kills to break an early tie. And when she hit a set from Alex Rougeau over the net and between three Greylock players, the Warriors had their five-set victory.

“We just remembered playing against Lenox five sets and we locked in,” Wahconah co-captain Emma Jacinto said. “We didn’t want to go out like how we did against Lenox, because we know we’re a good team. We locked in right there, and we just played our hardest.”

In a match where there were multiple momentum swings, the set scores were 25-21, 26-28, 25-17, 18-25, 15-10.

“Things went for us,” said Wahconah coach Dave Lussier. “When we played Lenox, it probably toughened us up for the next five-setter. With our schedule that we have this year, we’re probably going to see a lot of these.”

The final set started with Wahconah jumping out to a quick 3-1 lead, only to have Mount Greylock’s Olivia Perez record one of her nine kills off a serve by Wahconah’s Marlee Arnhold. Greylock tied the score at 3 when Cunagin’s kill attempt landed just on the other side of the back line.

Cunagin did not miss on the next ball as Melaina Haczela set her up for a kill that put the Warriors up 4-3. And when Haczela, who had started things with a serve, set up Cunagin again, the Warriors had a 5-3 lead. Haczela had a most impressive 33 assists on the night.

The Mounties, who fought back from a six-point deficit late in the second set to win, stayed in contact with the Warriors until the final point.

With Wahconah up 14-10, Jaros had the serve for Greylock and Cunagin set it to Madison Judson, who gave it back to Cunagin. Greylock’s Tyanna Lepicier played the ball to Jaros, who sent it to Olivia Perez for the spike. An outstanding dig by Judson, who had nine on the night, kept the Mounties from getting a big point. Rougeau played the ball to Cunagin, and she placed the ball in between the Greylock front and back line for the match-deciding point.

“This is very big for us. Mount Greylock, they’re our rivals every year,” Jacinto said. “Our goal is to beat Mount Greylock and last year, we finally beat them after losing to them for so long.

“I feel like we did really good tonight. Our hitters were so good, like Taea Cunagin, she hit bombs every time,” Jacinto continued. “Our setter Melaina, she was amazing, just getting the ball to where it needed to be.”

Lussier said he thought the fourth set set up the fifth set for the Warriors.

Wahconah had won the third set and the first 2 points of the fourth. But Greylock responded with 5 unanswered points, forcing Lussier to call timeout.

While Greylock’s Kaleigh Jaros served long after the timeout, it was the only point in a 9-1 run for the Mounties that turned a 2-point deficit into a 9-3 lead.

After Wahconah cut the lead to 9-6, Greylock responded with an impressive 10-0 run, which made it 19-6. Greylock got the lead to 24-9 before Wahconah came back. The Warriors scored 8 straight points, cutting the lead to 24-18, but the Mounties got the last point to win the set 18-25.

“I’m happy with how they finished the fourth set. That was very important that they finished the fourth set in the way they did,” Lussier said. “I think it carried over a little bit into the fifth. You know, Alex put a ton of good serves together. If anything, we were erratic with our serves keeping them in. We were getting a lot of aces, but we need a little better percentage off of the serves. Alex really stepped up at the end of the fourth set and got the attitude turned right around for us.”

The Wahconah gym was rocking Tuesday night, with the bleachers opposite the benches nearly full. It was “Conah ESPN” night, with students rocking ties and blazers. Greylock, meanwhile, had a large contingent of fans making the trip, and it was as noisy as it could get.

There was a lot of noise in the second set, where Wahconah led 24-18, only to have Mount Greylock tie the set at 24 and force it into overtime.

It was 26-26, when Greylock won a point off a Wahconah serve and the Mounties won the set after Haydn Derby served.

With the win, Wahconah improves to 5-1. Greylock is now 3-2. But Mounties coach Greg Geyer said the only thing that was disappointing was the final score.

“I am ecstatic,” he said. “If you watched this team from the start of this match to the end of the match, you could see its growth. There are seven or eight new players and a whole bunch of sophomores and they’re learning all the time. I couldn’t be happier with how hard they’re working. We’re going to learn our lessons. Nobody’s happy with the result, which is good, but we’re going to learn our lessons.

“This is a very strong league and we’re competing with everybody.”

For Wahconah, in addition to Cunagin’s 14 kills, Rougeau had 11 kills and Jacinto had nine. Jacinto also had a team-best five blocks.

Lepicier had five kills in addition to the nine by Perez. Jillian DeChaine and Jaros had four aces each for the Mounties. Jaros added 12 assists, while Kiera Kristensen had three kills and two blocks. Perez’s day included three aces, three blocks and eight assists.

Wahconah (5-1) now hits the road for its next two contests. The Warriors are at East Longmeadow Wednesday and Longmeadow on Friday. Greylock, 3-2, will be home for Taconic on Wednesday and Ludlow on Friday.