Cambridge Rindge and Latin knocks off Boston Latin in Div. 1 first round

CAMBRIDGE — A lot of Cambridge Rindge and Latin’s practices over the past couple weeks have been spent speaking about sustaining focus and bettering serving.

Friday night time within the first spherical of the Div. 1 state event towards acquainted Twin County League foe No. 21 Boston Latin, that emphasis paid dividends.

Regardless of a number of huge runs from a resilient Wolfpack group that examined the Falcons in shut second and third units, No. 12 Cambridge discovered a approach to answer each punch with runs of its personal to maneuver on with a 3-0 win (25-11, 25-21, 25-23). Matthew Liu led the way in which with 16 kills and David Gonzalo had 24 assists with two kills, taking part in giant roles inside 4 completely different runs of a minimum of 5 straight factors as Cambridge took momentum in giant strings behind sturdy serving.

The Falcons loosened the grip just a little an excessive amount of in bits and items to permit Boston Latin benefits within the second and third units, however clamped down to maneuver on to face the winner of No. 5 Lexington vs. No. 28 Methuen within the second spherical.

“Large win … it feels good,” mentioned head coach Kelley Leary. “We did a scouting report they usually knew every little thing to search for. We overpassed it and needed to be reminded … they had been shedding just a little focus there however they pulled it collectively.”

After a sizzling first set that noticed Gonzalo, Liu, James Rochberg and Henry Bonney take off for a cushty 1-0 Falcons lead, the Wolfpack punched again within the second set as Alex Pfau (16 assists, three kills, block) linked with Raymond Xu (9 kills) for a 10-2 lead. A timeout refocused Cambridge, which responded with an 11-2 run earlier than successful the body 25-21.

A lot of the identical got here late within the third set, with Boston Latin scraping collectively a 5-0 run to take a 23-21 lead. Cambridge fought again with a 4-0 run to shut out the sport.

Gonzalo’s distribution is a giant credit score to staving off the Boston Latin runs, however stretches of sound serves — led by junior captain Jeremy Kravitz and senior Ezra Barneson — was a focus. Trying to ice the sport with the third set, the Falcons dedicated only one service error within the body alongside three of their seven aces.

“It comes right down to serving, and now we have some actually good servers,” Kravitz mentioned. “We work on serving in all probability each single apply. … We’re getting higher at making use of apply into recreation. This recreation proved rather a lot, I feel, for us.”