When Greenwich High School’s volleyball team hosted Fairfield Ludlowe on Tuesday it continued an impressive pattern the program has been known to follow for numerous seasons.

Each season over the course of more than a decade, the Cardinals have swept the majority of their opponents and Tuesday, they defeated another formidable foe by a 3-0 score.

Greenwich continued its perfect season, running its record to 4-0 with a 3-0 victory over visiting FCIAC rival Fairfield Ludlowe. So far, the 2024 season has seen the Cardinals post victories over St. Joseph, Newtown, New Canaan and Ludlowe. The Ludlowe match was a challenging one for the Cardinals, who won the matchup by set scores of 25-20, 25-23, 25-12.

“I think we’re coming together,” GHS coach Marianna Linnehan said. “Everyone enjoys playing together. We have a lot of stuff to work on, but we’re doing it little by little.”

Greenwich is coming off a successful season in which it advanced to the title match of the FCIAC Tournament against champion Darien and the quarterfinal-round of the CIAC Class LL Tournament.

The Cards’ 2024 roster includes five seniors, four juniors and four sophomores. Sarah Bernann, Joy Houdre and Alina Sarkissian are the squad’s senior captains.

“They lead this team really well by example, but also just by leadership,” Linnehan said of her captains. “They keep the younger players into the game and their confidence level up.”

In Tuesday’s triumph versus Ludlowe, Sarkissian excelled at the net, registering 14 kills, to go along with five blocks. She added three digs and one assist in the winning effort.

“We’re getting better as it goes, each match is getting better,” Sarkissian said.

Alina grew up watching her older sister Liana play volleyball at Greenwich High School. Liana Sarkissian is now competing on the volleyball team at the University of Dayton.

“Being a part of this program, it’s amazing,” Alina Sarkissian said. “As freshmen, we all were together on the JV team and when I saw my sister on the court it was amazing. She was my biggest role model and it’s such an honor to be a captain of this team.”

Bernann, a setter, helped facilitate the offense, recording 29 assists, while posting 10 digs against the Falcons.

Bernann is pleased with the chemistry and rhythm the team has shown with each match it has competed in.

“We have a lot of sophomores on our team this year having to fill big roles, big shoes from people we lost last year,” Bernann said. “They are doing a great job. At first it was about team bonding, team connections, but now we’re all so close and all the younger girls are playing great. They are all dominating.”

Sophomore Heidi Zierme powered Greenwich’s offense as well, notching 14 kills to go along with 14 digs and one ace. Houdre, a libero, was great defensively, tallying 16 digs and four assists.

Fairfield Ludlowe held leads of 20-17 and 21-19 in the second set, but GHS rallied to win the game, 25-23.

“We got momentum in the second set, but we still did kind of struggle, we knew we had to keep our serves in order to take them down in the third set and I think that’s exactly what we did,” Houdre noted. “We didn’t miss a serve in the third set. We just played as a unit, rather than individuals.”

Indeed, in the third game, Greenwich jumped out to a 6-0 lead, then went ahead, 10-2, 13-3 and 14-4, before winning it 25-12. Sarkissian and Zierme had several kills in the third game, while sophomore Kayah Armstrong added a kill.

“The second set – once I told them we need to clean up our errors, our service errors, our serve receive – they played a lot better,” Linnehan said.

Said Sarkissian: “Our energy is up there we made sure to bring it up after the second set. We knew what we did wrong in that second set.”

Greenwich should receive plenty of leadership from its captains as well as all the seniors on the squad.

“It feels amazing, it was my dream,” Houdre said of being a captain. “I moved here when I was in ninth grade, so seeing the older girls that were senior captains, I knew that I wanted that to be me one day.”

The Cards hosted FCIAC opponent St. Joseph today, then will travel to Wilton Saturday, before playing host to Southington on Monday – the team they lost to in the 2023 Class LL quarterfinals one season ago.

“There are a lot of tough opponents, especially when you play club with the people across the net,” Bernann noted. “You know what they do and you know their tendencies offensively and defensively.”

“This game gave us the things we need to work on, for Southington for sure,” Bernann continued.