West girls paint Queen City blue

MANCHESTER, NH – With a 3-0 victory at rival Manchester Central High School Wednesday evening, the Manchester West High School girls volleyball team locked up bragging rights for another year.

“For all three years I’ve been here, we’ve kept the city blue,” said West junior captain and outside hitter Lindsey St. Pierre.

“We want to continue to (win the season series against Central and Memorial),” she said, “and this sets us up well for our JV players to rise up and keep the wins coming.”

“It’s a city rival game, it’s something we look forward to all the time,” said West first-year head coach Heloa Miranda. “We are invicted (unconquered against fellow Queen City competition), so we are super happy about that.”

West also earned a 3-1 victory at West on Sept. 6 and won both matchups with Memorial – on Oct. 7 and 18 – by identical 3-1 margins to finish the season unblemished against Queen City foes.

Which is why, from players to coaches, everyone in the Central gymnasium Wednesday understood the reality that there was more at stake than simply another win or loss.

“The Manchester games are always the most important games out of our season, regardless of records or anything like that,” said longtime Central head coach Ed True. “It’s all about having that city pride and being able to say you beat the other team.”

Though Central fought hard in Wednesday’s contest, keeping all three sets tight – 25-21, 25-22, 25-19 – the Blue Knights stood tall.

“We couldn’t really ask for more than their best, and they battled their hardest out there,” said True. “Would love to have another shot at it, but at least we have one more Friday.”

Though the battle against West has been lost for Central, the Little Green (0-16) still have a chance to split the season series with Memorial when they host the 3-14 Crusaders Friday at 6:30 p.m.

Central fell to Memorial, 3-0, in the season opener on Sept. 4.

“We still have a lot of work to do but from where we were at the beginning of the season to where we are now is night and day,” said True. “I told the girls, ‘we’ve got to work on things, and when we fix those, new problems come up, and we’ve got to fix those,’ and that’s just the development of a young team … so we just have to keep working to be that much better next year and going forward.”

West, on the other hand, finishes the regular season with a tough home matchup against out-of-city foe Milford (13-2) Friday at 6 p.m.

Regardless of the result of that contest, St. Pierre – who had five aces, six digs, three sets and three kills in the most recent win over Central – said it’s important the Blue Knights’ varsity veterans continue to lock in right to the end.

“We already lost practically our whole varsity team from last year, 12 seniors,” she said,” so I just really just don’t want our JV girls to come in thinking, ‘ok, we can just win the city again.’ It’s going to be a big jump for them and I want them to be ready to come up and try their best.”

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