EPHS girls’ volleyball looks for consistency in second half of the season

With seven games remaining, Townies seek another playoff berth

By Matt Galvao
Posted 10/18/17

EAST PROVIDENCE — The East Providence High School girls’ volleyball team entered the new week with a 7-4 record in the Division I-Central standings heading into the second half of the 2017 season. It …

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EPHS girls’ volleyball looks for consistency in second half of the season

With seven games remaining, Townies seek another playoff berth

Posted

EAST PROVIDENCE — The East Providence High School girls’ volleyball team entered the new week with a 7-4 record in the Division I-Central standings heading into the second half of the 2017 season. It hasn’t always been easy for the Townies this year with the team having their fair share of ups and downs.

“I think we’ve been very inconsistent in our play. I think for some stretches we’ve played very well and for other stretches we’ve played pretty poorly,” explained EPHS head coach Alex Butler. “We’ve had matches where it’s looked good, and some other matches where all the negative stuff has come and shown.”

The team started off their season winless in its first three game. The lack of confidence and struggles with adversity were part of the reason why the team fell to 0-3 at the beginning of the year.

“We started off the year pretty strong and then you’re faced with some adversity and people start second guessing their own abilities and things they can do on the floor,” Butler said. “We also needed to play through some adversity and we weren’t able to do that.”

Since that point the Townies have rattled off wins in six out of their last seven matches. Much of the recent success has been credited to the players comfort levels with each of their roles on the team and the decline in unforced errors.

“We stopped beating ourselves in those matches that we lost. We had high numbers of unforced errors of passing, serving, hitting where we would take ourselves out of matches,” Butler explained. “In those games we were probably up sixty-five to seventy percent of those games where we could’ve won but we didn’t really win those points that you need to beat teams.”

Senior middle hitter Kate Mendillo has been one of the brighter spots on the Townies roster this season. Mendillo has been able to round out her game from the end of last season and turn into one of the top players on the team.

“Kate Mendillo has been our most consistent player. She struggled a little at the end of last year. We talked about some things that she needed to do to perform up to her capabilities and she went out and did that,” said Butler. “She’s been very steady for us in the middle and has kept that flatline play. I know if we get here the ball she’s gonna be effective either scoring or butting their defense in a bad position. Overall, I’ve been impressed with her play.”

Going forward to the second half of the season, East Providence will have to focus more on being a consistent team and round out each phase of its game. Their serve-receive is one area that Butler wants them to sharpen because it can help drive the team’s offense.

“We’ve tried to focus on being consistent in every phase of the game. When we serve-receive well and pass well our offense is able to run a lot more smoothly,” Butler said. “When we’re struggling to pass and the ball is not getting to the target we get limited to where we can go and it makes us more predictable.”

With seven matches left in their season the Townies will be faced with a tough schedule. Their upcoming slate includes three of the top four teams in Division I with North Kingstown, Barrington and Coventry all due up.

“It’s a daunting task. It’s just about trying to take things one at a time, and one match at a time,” Butler said he told his players. “As far as the preparation goes, we prepare everyday on different types of serves and things of that nature. Each of those three teams present different challenges. It’s my job to convey where we need to focus on.”

As the season gets closer to the end the thought of locking up a playoff spot comes to mind. The team is taking it one match at a time and focusing on their and know their postseason chances are in their hands.

“We can’t control what’s on the other side of the net. Whether it’s a team that’s undefeated or a team that doesn’t have a win, we try to prepare the same way. Each game that comes up it’s an opportunity to better our standings overall and hopefully get ourselves the best possible seeding that we can,” Butler added.

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.