×

Volleyball off to flying start

NASHUA – It may have taken a game and a half and a benching, but Hollis Brookline captain Mike Moscatelli took over the Cavaliers boys volleyball opener with Bishop Guertin on Tuesday night.

The senior came out of the gate too amped up and made several mistakes in the opening set.

He rebounded, cleared his head and came back to lead Hollis Brookline to a 18-25, 25-19, 25-22, 25-12 victory at Bishop Guertin High School.

“I’ve had him since he was a freshman,” Hollis Brookline coach Ed Leonard said. “He was on the championship team in 2016. He’s seen it all. He’s a captain this year. He’s a leader and the younger guys look up to him. You can see when he steps on the floor. First set, he was all over the place. I pulled him. I pulled my senior captain starter out. He said ‘Thank you’. He was in his head. He cleared his head, went back out there and put them on his back.”

Mistakes slowed HB in the early going.

“It’s early in the season and our team started off making a lot of mistakes,” Leonard said. “We had 19 or 20 errors and we basically gave away that first set. Guys are amped up in the early Spring and they want to smash every ball. I’ve got a lot of first year players and guys that have never played before. We just have to clean up the errors. We got better as the game went on, and that’s all you can ask for. As long we’re improving faster than everyone else like we did tonight, we kind of got our stuff together and improved every set.”

In the second set, Hollis Brookline did a better job keeping its returns in.

The Cavaliers were sparked by the play of

Moscatelli, taking game 2.

Hollis Brookline came charging back though and won the set 25-22 on Connor Russell’s tip shot.

“In the (third) set we were down and came back with Noon serving,” Bishop Guertin coach Matt Box said. “The challenge for us is keeping it together and holding that throughout the set. Mental toughness is definitely something we can build on.”

Sander Wimmer had 12 kills for Hollis Brookline, Moscatelli had 10 and Joshua Ide had 35 assists.