By Jason Cooke || ValleySportsDaily Editor
ANDOVER, Mass. — With No. 4 Andover applying pressure in the first two sets of Sunday’s quarterfinal bout with No. 5 Franklin, the Panthers leaned on their veterans who had been there before to cruise to a 3-0 win by way of 25-20, 25-22, 25-8 at Andover High School.
Franklin (21-2) advances to play perhaps the hottest team in the tournament in No. 16 Newton South, which has downed No. 1 Chelmsford and No. 8 Brookline en route to the Final Four. That game is slated for Wednesday at Westwood High School (7:15 p.m.).
A talented Golden Warriors team made Franklin work for its second semifinal appearance in the last three years. But Makayla Kuykendall (14 kills, 10 digs, two aces, two blocks) and Olivia Alberti (eight kills, two aces, four blocks) ensured a clean sweep.
“We needed to close it out,” Kuykendall said. “Just to finish strong and finish it out right there. We didn’t want to go to a fourth set or a fifth set. We didn’t want to have that nervous ending.”
Both quarterfinal victories Kuykendall and Alberti have had a hand in have been upsets. Franklin edged No. 2 Haverhill in 2023 to punch its ticket to the semifinals, where it fell to Barnstable.
“My favorite moment throughout all of volleyball was making it to the Final Four a few years ago, and that was like a really big upset,” Alberti said. “So to do it again this year and to also be an upset is such a big moment.”
Andover (18-5) received strong play from Jessie Wang (10 kills, seven digs, block), Naomi Vajda (four digs, eight kills, 10 service aces) and Farah Berty (15 digs), but Franklin’s well-rounded engine was too much to overcome.
“You can’t be ashamed of losing to a team that outplayed you on a given day,” said Andover head coach Dan Young. “And I felt like today they were the better team, so they are deserving to move on.”
The teams were tied at 15 early in the first set in what was a tightly contested game. But Franklin eventually created a 23-20 lead and sealed game one with an ace from Alberti.
“We just had to stay steady,” said Franklin head coach Chris Ridolfi. “We didn’t panic. If you noticed in the first set, I didn’t take a time out. I just let it roll, and I asked them to be steady. They were steady.”
Alberti would notch huge kills in the second set to help Franklin pull away and set the tone in the final set with pivotal kills in the early goings. Phoebe O’Connor (37 assists, three aces, 24 digs) developed a strong connection with Franklin’s hitters.
“The energy overall was really good, so it was able to bring me up,” Alberti said. “And I think the setter-hitter connection all night was really good. We were just pushing really hard through every point.”
After Franklin raced to a 20-12 lead in the middle frame, however, Andover struck back. A pair of Vajda kills cut the deficit before Wang and Camryn Leithead added kills as Franklin’s cushion dwindled to 24-22. Kuykendall spoiled the comeback effort to take the set.
“They keep them on track and they keep them together,” Ridolfi said of Kuykendall and Alberti. “It’s something that you can’t measure. It doesn’t show up on the court, but we would probably be lost without it.”
Franklin’s attack was supplemented by a large supporting cast, including Emerson Delleo (seven kills, two blocks, 14 digs), Gianna Laurello (five kills, three aces, five digs, one block), Emma Cunningham (three aces, 24 digs) and Charlotte Yeulenski (four kills, two blocks).
Ridolfi may be a first-year head coach, but it didn’t take long for him to gauge his team’s determination early in the season to return to Sunday’s stage after a loss in the quarterfinals last fall.
“From the very beginning, they told me this is where they wanted to go,” Ridolfi said. “And they’ve prepped like that, they’ve practiced like that, all of them.”
With a trip to the state finals on deck, Franklin will keep taking every game one point at a time.
“I think we definitely set the tone that this game is like, ‘You got to win this game.’ We were really excited, and we came into this wanting to win. Our goal has always been looking forward and just looking to the next game,” Kuykendall said.
Jason Cooke is the editor of Valley Sports Daily – a sister site of HockomockSports.com. You can contact him at Jason@valleysportsdaily.com and follow him on Twitter at @cookejournalism.