By Brittany Bowyer
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PHOENIX — It was a packed gym at Xavier College Prep on Wednesday for one of the top volleyball matches of the regular season.

The Xavier Gators were hosting the O’Connor Eagles in what many knew would be a 6A battle for the books. Living up to its hype, O’Connor was able to upset the Xavier gators by taking home a 3-1 victory.

Still undefeated, the Eagles hold a 15-0 record approaching the midway point of the season.

“We have our standards that we have set for the way we compete, some of the ways we lock into just collectively how we play,” O’Connor Head Coach Amanda Burbridge said.

Part of those standards involve being able to follow and execute the game plan, which O’Connor did beautifully on Wednesday night.

“We talked a lot about execution just in general,” Burbridge said. “We weren’t quite sure what we were going to see on their end, because we’ve seen a variety of lineups, and it was true today. We saw a variety of different looks from them.”

Burbridge also said they knew they’d need to prepare to make changes in the middle of the match, specifically defensively, so they prepared the girls accordingly.

“We told the girls, ‘Hey, whatever we tell you to do, you’re gonna need to make that switch pretty quick.’ So it was really relying on them to make the switches throughtout the game and make the adjustments we were asking them for.”

In set one, O’Connor jumped out to an early 4-1 lead and was able to continue building on it throughout. The Gators were able to get within two, but the Eagles would go on a tear and extend the lead to 20-13, forcing Xavier to call a timeout to try to regroup.

Xavier came out of the timeout and scored three straight to make it 21-15, forcing O’Connor to call a timeout to discuss closing out the set. Xavier kept clawing, trying to crawl back into things, but O’Connor was able to take set one 25-18.

In set two, Xavier got on the board first, but O’Connor stayed neck-and-neck with them through the beginning. Around midway through the second set, O’Connor was able to break out into the lead, forcing Xavier to call a timeout. Coming out of the timeout, the momentum was still behind the Eagles, who went on to extend the lead even further. Now trailing 21-15, Xavier called another timeout to try to regroup. It wouldn’t be enough to change the momentum of the game, as O’Connor was able to close out set two with a score of 25-17.

Set three once again found the Eagles in front early, but with their backs against the wall, the Gators dug deep inside and were able to rally and make a come back. Slowly but surely, they climbed their way out of the hole they were in, tying things at 21. The Eagles used a timeout, hoping they would be able to rally to win the set and close out the game with a sweep, but Xavier had other plans. They were able to fight their way to a 26-24 victory in set three to force a fourth set.

The start of the fourth set was a back-and-forth battle between the two teams to try to establish dominance. Tied at nine, a kill from O’Connor senior Kristen Sheehy seemingly brought the energy needed to swing the rest of the set. Fom there, O’Connor was able to go on a run, forcing Xavier to call yet another timeout as the Gators trailed 14-10. After the timeout, O’Connor went on another run to extend the lead to 20-12, as Xavier used their last remaining timeout of the set to talk things over and see what they can put together to try to rally.

Despite being down, the Gators fought hard to try to close out set four with a comeback until the very end, but they couldn’t overcome the power and momentum of the Eagles. O’Connor was able to take set four 25-17, winning the match 3-1.

It really was an all-around team effort to pick up the win. Leading the charge with 21 kills on the night was Senior Berkely France. Behind her was Sheehy with 13, and junior Alayah Krein with 11. Junior Sami Mondino had four aces on the night, while junior Gabriella Nucci had 6 blocks in the match.

“We had so many really great performances,” Burbridge said. “That’s what we told them. We were like, ‘We are as good because we all contribute, and there’s not one player that leads us in a way that it just dominates us as a team.’ So we really focus in on the fact that everybody’s going to contribute. Whether you’re on the sideline, whether you’re on the floor, it doesn’t matter. Strength comes from all of us together.”

With rankings set to come out next Tuesday, O’Connor is expecting to be towards the top of 6A. Burbridge knows this matchup is just a preview of some of the tough competition to come, especially once the postseason rolls around.

“Perry is a really good team, Liberty is a great team, there’s a lot of really good talent in the Valley,” Burbridge said. “This is all still in my opinion the preseason, so there’s a lot of volleyball left and we’re still in September. Who knows what everyone’s gonna look like by the time we get to November.”

Xavier Coach Lamar-Renee Bryant also agreed that teams will look different as the weeks continue to progress. She hopes her team will be one of them that looks different come November.

“When you have young players, everyday they learn and they grow, they take these pressure situations and they get better,” Bryant said.

Bryant said the speed of the game really impacted the younger players on her team, and it was something they needed to experience to continue learning from.

“The speed really affected us, as far as our blocking, it affected our setters, so just get getting comfortable playing at a fast pace is something we have to work on, especially with such a young team,” Bryant said.

Brittany Bowyer is a Report for America corps member, covering sports for Independent Newsmedia in Arizona. Report for America places talented journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and regions.