Methuen nets MVC victory over Chelmsford in five-set thriller

METHUEN It took years for the Methuen boys volleyball association to ultimately reclaim the Merrimack Valley Conference title last year Friday night the must-win Rangers kept their hopes for a repeat alive Seniors Lucas Giard kills five blocks and Shawn LaDuke assists erupted in a match No Chelmsford clawed back several times in pairing with Andrew Cox kills to help No Methuen - - gut out a - - - - - - win After dropping their MVC opener to the Lions - - and then a five-set thriller to Lowell - - on Monday the Rangers knew just how much they needed this one We talked about it we knew it was an MVC must-win for us revealed Methuen head coach Matt Twomey If you have three Merrimack Valley Conference losses it s going to be really hard and you re going to need a lot of help Hopefully when Lowell comes here we play as tough against them as we did against Chelmsford in contemporary times and I m sure it will still be a slugfest Methuen s Elijah Jean and Andrew Cox jump up to the net during a volleyball match against Chelmsford Host Methuen won - Libby O Neill Boston Herald Part of that - loss to Lowell included a - loss in the fourth set after leading the match - After Methuen led - and - in Friday s fourth set Chelmsford s Liam Quinn kills three aces combined with Ridty Tauch kills three blocks for kills in the frame to overcome the deficit and force a fifth set with a - win But unlike Monday the Rangers pieced together enough in the fifth to take the match Giard notched a kill early as part of a - start then notched two more ahead of an Adrian Blake kills two blocks block that gave Methuen a - lead Kills from Blake and Cox extended the lead to - which proved enough of a cushion to withstand a - response from Chelmsford anchored by a pair of kills from Tauch and Gavin Lin kills The Lions needed just two points to force more extra points but LaDuke connected with Cox to cap off an impressive win despite missing starters Thomas Le middle hitter and Cole Tourkantonis outside hitter Jayden Cox seven kills also played well for Methuen Chelmsford s Jayden Som makes contact with the ball as Methuen s Shawn LaDuke looks on during a volleyball encounter match on Friday night Libby O Neill Boston Herald Guys have really stepped up big I feel like we put a lot of emphasis on making sure that we limit our unforced errors Twomey noted When this club plays clean they re tough This is a tough company I think a lot of people counted us out having lost Drew Eason and James Levesque last year but as you can see we have firepower for days It just speaks to how hard these guys have worked When other teams are getting gassed these guys are just getting going Limiting Quinn and Tauch enough to pull this one out was a major highlight for Twomey especially from libero Gavin Sparks digs positioned in the middle-back Just in the middle-back he was able to touch far more balls in the back row and that definitely helped us Twomey announced And our defense down the stretch was great I think Blake and especially Giard did a great job of kind of shutting down Quinn tonight