Story and photos by Richard W. Dionne, Jr.
The East Providence girls' volleyball team suffered a heartbreaking five-set loss to Portsmouth 3-2 (25-21, 20-25, 17-25, 25-21, 15-13) during the Division 1 semifinals at Rhode Island College on Tuesday night.
“we fought our hardest and that's all we could do,” said senior middle hitter Trinity Johnson-Carter. “There are a lot of emotions. It was a great season.”
“It’s been a tremendous season,” said head coach Alex Butler. “We’re extremely young. The development has been great and we've come a long way. These girls give me everything they have and work extremely hard. Two teams stepped onto the court. One of them had to lose.”
The Townies won a tight first set, then loss the next two. They came back from a 21-17 deficit to win the fourth set and found themselves faced with a similar situation in the fifth.
Down 14-8 in the fifth set, sophomore Vivian Bernhardt won five-straight service points, but the Townies weren’t able to pull out the comeback.
Junior setter Keira Mullen led the Townies in the loss with 11 kills, 18 assists and 9 digs. Junior outside hitter Ellie Vest had 10 kills, 14 digs and 3 aces. Sophomore outside hitter Vivian Bernhardt made 7 kills and 10 digs.
East Providence came back from a one-set deficit to beat South Kingstown 3-1 (18-25, 25-13, 25-22, 25-18) in the quarterfinals.
Mullen again led the team with 17 kills, 15 assists, 8 digs, 3 blocks and 3 aces. Vest had 12 kills, 9 digs and 4 aces.
East Providence finished their season with a record of 14-5. The young Townies won 7 matches in a row to start the season. And finished the season winning 5 their final 7 matches, losing to Portsmouth twice.