North Smithfield boys volleyball tops La Salle in five sets; here's why it matters
PROVIDENCE — The North Smithfield boys volleyball team was challenged in the first set.
The Northmen said their compete level didn’t match their standard against La Salle. But with Division I playoff seedings yet to be determined, the tide needed to turn and North Smithfield flipped it quickly. The Northmen showed their mettle in the second frame by recovering from a four-point deficit to steal the set.
They went on to drop the third stanza to the defending champions, but North Smithfield flashed its title aspirations by holding off a rally in the fourth set and claiming the fifth in convincing fashion.
The Northmen had already handed North Kingstown its lone loss of the season and, after topping La Salle, 17-25, 26-24, 20-25, 25-23, 15-9,) on Monday night, North Smithfield has a resumé that stacks against anyone in the league.
“The first set we were honestly sleeping,” North Smithfield outside hitter, Carter Deslauriers, said. “Then the fifth set we came out with a fire and that was it.”
With the revenge win after losing to La Salle earlier in the year, the Northmen match Cranston East at 11-3 for second in the division. The Thunderbolts have the tiebreaker after taking both matches against North Smithfield this spring, but the win puts the Northmen ahead of the Rams by two games.
With four games left, including a trip to North Kingstown on Wednesday, North Smithfield could be eyeing a top-three seed after the La Salle win. And the Northmen could go as high as No. 1, but would need help from others to knock off the Skippers and Thunderbolts.
“The last couple of games we've been playing really down with not a lot of energy,” North Smithfield’s Thomas Matchett said. “We’d get a big kill, but without a celebration. We just brought our energy up as a team and kept talking and kept bringing each other up the whole match. We knew La Salle was going to bring a ton of energy and that got to us last time.”
Related: Who's this week's Providence Journal Boys Volleyball Player of the Week? Vote now
It was a team effort to hold off La Salle as Matchett managed nine blocks and Deslauriers had 14 kills. In the ever-important second set, which North Smithfield trailed, 20-18, Deslauriers had back-to-back kills to seal the win.
Outside hitter, Connor DeSousa tallied 11 kills while Caden Sullivan had a standout night with 44 assists and six kills.
“If it's just one player playing well, or one player that the team knows that they're going to get the ball every single time, it's really easy to just defend that one player,” Deslauriers said. But when it’s the whole team, it makes it a lot more difficult.”
La Salle earned the third-set win behind their star Ephraim Abhulime. The Merrimack-commit then scored three of La Salle’s five straight points in the fourth frame as the Rams closed an 18-12 gap to just one point.
But the Northmen held Abhulime to just one point in the decisive set.
“It's very important [to know where Abhulime is],” Deslauriers said. “When we get a block on him, it's pretty satisfying and it really gets the team kind of hyped up so it is really important.”
Sullivan had the play of the match in the final set as he stretched to kick up, literally, possession to save a point. The rally ended with the Northmen securing a 6-3 lead.
North Smithfield is a co-op with Mount Saint Charles, but with the Mounties leaving for the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council this fall, the dual program will be eliminated. The MSC players have been grandfathered in for this spring after the co-op began in 2022 when they went undefeated and won the Division II crown.
Want to keep up to date on all the latest action in high school sports? Sign up to get the inside scoop on every pitch, play and score with our High School Sports Insider newsletter sent straight to your inbox every Thursday and Sunday.
They’ll look to play with the passion that seized an 8-3 lead in the fourth frame and a 5-1 start in the fifth for the remainder of the co-op’s tenure.
“Today we just definitely proved that when we step up our energy, we really step up our game play and I think that's what we need to do,” Deslauriers said.
jrousseau@providencejournal.com
On X: @ByJacobRousseau
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: North Smithfield boys volleyball captures big win against La Salle
