HOLYOKE — The last time the Holyoke girls volleyball team played in a Western Massachusetts Division 2 quarterfinal, the Purple Knights received a bye there in 2008. They hadn’t won a postseason match in more than a decade and fell in the first round the previous three years.
None of that history mattered against West Springfield in the first round Thursday, as the seventh-seeded Purple Knights swept the No. 10 Terriers 3-0. That sets up a quarterfinal at No. 2 Longmeadow on Monday at 6:30 p.m. Holyoke didn’t face the Lancers (13-5) this regular season.
“I’m sure they have height,” Holyoke coach Paula Conway said. “We’re gonna have to prepare for everything with Longmeadow.”
Some fresh perspective might come from senior Autumn Charnick. She played at Central the previous three years before transferring to Holyoke. The Golden Eagles fell to Longmeadow in last season’s quarterfinals.
“I think we have a chance with them, I already know what to expect,” Charnick said. “We really need our defense.”
Charnick provided plenty of offense against the Terriers (9-10). She led Holyoke with 10 kills and 15 digs while contributing five aces. Charnick closed the second set with back-to-back kills to deliver a 25-14 victory. Holyoke (18-1) close the set on a 7-1 run.
“For me it’s like a usual thing, it’s normal,” Charnick said. “But the feeling of pounding (a kill) is that adrenaline that makes you feel like you’re on top of everything.”
Selena Garcia contributed eight of her nine kills in the first two sets. She had two of Holyoke’s first four points, as the Purple Knights won the first set 25-18.
“She gets high, her timing is very good,” Conway said. “We worked on having her seeing the whole court and seeing what they’re doing. She was getting some very good sets.”
Destiny Calderon distributed 30 assists and added three kills and a block. She kept West Springfield’s blockers guessing, and had multiple attackers with several kills. Shivani Ramraykha added six kills, Alysha Izquierdo (one block) had four kills and Ashanty Bonilla (two blocks) contributed two.
“It makes our lives a lot easier,” Conway said. “I’m sure to defend against, it’s not so easy.”
Holyoke appeared ready to close the match out with a 23-17 lead in the third set after a Ramraykha kill. Then three straight attack errors from the Purple Knights pulled West Springfield within shouting distance. But Ramraykha added another kill, and the Terriers ended the match with a hitting error to send Holyoke through to the quarterfinals.
“We were ready to play, more than senior night,” Garcia said. “We came here to win. Maybe in the third set we were a little bit off, but we still came back.”