Garvey serves up a win for O’Hara

MARPLE – When Lauren Garvey stepped to the service line, the plan was simple.

The senior wasn’t trying to do too much with her serve in Tuesday’s nonleague match with Strath Haven. But once she found something that worked, she kept going at it, again and again.

“Just keep doing the same thing,” Garvey said with a shrug.

It wasn’t broke, so Garvey figured, why fix it? She orchestrated long scoring runs on her serve in each of the first two sets to lead Cardinal O’Hara to a 3-0 win over Strath Haven by game scores of 25-8, 25-16 and 25-6.

O’Hara rattled off a 9-0 run with Garvey at the line in the first set, taking a 14-6 lead that grew with six straight points on Sarah McGarrity’s serve. In the second set, O’Hara opened up an 11-6 edge behind Garvey’s serve, and though the Panthers rallied back to even it at 12, the effort took a lot of out them.

Garvey’s go-to was a deep, cross-court serve that didn’t try to sneak just inside the line or nibble at the boundary. Instead, she let the pace and natural knuckling effect of her serves do the work, forcing the Panthers to make decisions and make a play. A player who contributes anywhere on the court, Garvey buried five aces to go with eight kills and 12 digs, but created many more points via serves that gave Strath Haven’s defense fits and created passing errors.

“You have to make them make decisions,” Garvey said. “And most of the time, they were indecisive. … Most of the time, if you know they’re a good passer, you want to serve away from them. Or if you know they struggle with some things, you try to do that.”

O’Hara had a field day on its serves. Maeve Boylan fired five aces, to go with four digs and 13 assists. Sophomore libero Emily Collins added two aces to her 15 digs. And Reagan Hickey had two aces to augment nine kills and 13 digs.

“When they keep on messing up, I feel like it brings their energy down, and it makes us more pumped and hyped,” Boylan said. “That’s what we need to beat the other team. … After a timeout, we try to get the first serve in, let them make their mistakes. When it’s a close game, we want them to mess up to get down, and then we hit our serves harder and stronger.”

“I think we work in practice about switching over,” Haven’s Gabby McGinn said. “So I think it was more about adjusting to the serve quickly and making that transition to read the swing quickly.”

PHOTO GALLERY: Strath Haven vs. Cardinal O’Hara

Strath Haven rallied in the second set, an ace by McGinn getting them even at 12-all. They were within 19-16 when the game was paused briefly when O’Hara middle Siobhan Boylan went down with a scary looking leg injury. Though initially in tears, she walked off under her own power, but did not return, though there was little need for it.

The injury came after a pair of big blocks from the uber-athletic Boylan and a kill in the second set. Instead of crumpling, though, O’Hara rose to the occasion.

Reagan Hickey with the last two kills of set 2. O’Hara takes it 25-19, up 2-0 on Strath Haven pic.twitter.com/EIcWW73OtV

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) September 11, 2018

“I feel like we needed to bring it up more as a team because she’s one of our best players,” Maeve Boylan said. “So Caye (Pazluski) stepped in and did a good job to cover what we were missing.”

Hickey was the main one to raise her game. She followed an IJ Aguocha kill with a pair of kills to wrap up the second set. Hickey inherited an 0-2 deficit on her serve in the third set and started it with a kill, a Pazluski kill, then an ace. It was 7-3 O’Hara by the time she relinquished her serve and set the Lions on the way to a win.

In other nonleague play:

Sun Valley 3, Haverford 0 >> Rachel DeCarlo served up six aces to go with 13 digs, and the Vanguards split the setting duties between Christine Guenther and Hannah Vickers to combine for 22 assists in the win by game scores of 25-18, 25-8 and 25-22. Guenther added 11 kills and two aces, while Vickers had eight kills, three aces and two blocks. Gia DeEmido added three blocks for Sun Valley (3-1).

In the Catholic Academies League:

Sacred Heart 3, Merion Mercy 0 >> Jaycee Webster posted a double-double of 19 kills and 13 digs, and Hannah Martinson found time to tuck away seven kills to go with her 25 assists as the Lions swept by game scores of 25-13, 26-14 and 25-18.

Gianna Anthony added 17 digs for Sacred Heart (2-1, 1-1).

In the Catholic League:

Bonner & Prendergast 3, Bishop McDevitt 0 >> Abby Lance came up with 11 digs, and Maggie McDevitt and Lindsey Fagan provided six assists apiece as the Pandas won by game scores of 25-14, 25-17 and 25-23. Sam Lachette and Ariana McGeary combined for eight kills for Bonner & Prendie (2-1, 2-0).