It’s obviously better for teams to experience the disappointment that comes with a loss during the regular season, instead of the postseason and Greenwich High School’s girls volleyball team hopes that’s the scenario this season.

After starting their 2024 season with seven straight victories, the Cardinals experienced their first defeat of the season when they faced Southington in a non-conference showdown on Monday in a rematch of last season’s CIAC Class LL Tournament quarterfinals.

In a matchup involving a pair of unbeaten teams, Southington kept its perfect record intact, earning a 3-1 win over Greenwich, winning the hard-fought match, 25-22, 25-18, 20-25, 27-25.

“This totally gives us motivation,” Greenwich senior libero/captain Joy Houdre. “You never want to go into the postseason undefeated, so this takes a little bit of the pressure off. We know exactly what we need to do moving forward.”

Following their loss against Southington, the Cardinals got right back on the winning track in impressive fashion. Greenwich topped Bridgeport Central on the road on Tuesday, 3-0, then swept to another 3-0 win today, downing visiting New Canaan.

For the season, the Cardinals sport a sparkling record of 9-1.

“Now we know what it feels like to lose,” Greenwich senior captain Alina Sarkissian said. “We can’t play too cocky at the beginning of matches. We don’t want to feel like that again.”

In Greenwich’s tough 3-1 loss to Southington, Sarkissian recorded 15 kills and six digs, while senior captain/setter Sarah Bernann registered 10 digs and helped the offense to excel with 45 assists.

Houdre helped pace the Cardinals’ defensive effort with 21 digs. She also had one assist and one ace, while senior Talia Muir was also dynamic defensively, posting 15 digs, to go along strong offensive play. Muir notched six kills and one ace, to go along with one block.

Visiting Southington won the first set against GHS, 25-22, in a back-and-forth game, then took the second set, 25-18. Greenwich led most of the way in winning the third set, 25-20, to close to within 2-1.

“We just had to clean up our serve receive in order to run our hitters,” Greenwich coach Marianna Linnehan said. “Keeping our serves in was huge.”

“It was a good, hard-fought match,” Houdre noted. “They’re such a great team, they put pressure on us offensively, but throughout the game, we figured it out we came back. We never got down, we wanted to stay offensively strong and we figured out what was working for us, which is passing the ball to the setter and running our middle.”

In the fourth game, had the edge most of the time. Muir’s ace gave GHS a 16-14 lead on Southington and the Cards eventually led, 24-20, needing only one point to force a fifth and deciding set. Greenwich thought it had the fourth set won, as it initially took a point, which would have made it 25-23. Yet the point was disallowed due to a questionable infraction called by the official. Southington rallied thereafter and proceeded to win the fourth set, 27-25, and the match.

“Even though the game didn’t go as we wanted to, it doesn’t mean that we can’t finish out on top,” Bernann said. “We are super resilient; we didn’t let the first two sets that we dropped slow us down at all. We stayed positive and kept a good mentality the whole time.”

Sophomore Kayah Armstrong notched 11 kills, five digs and three blocks, while senior Cameron Clark had five digs, nine kills and three blocks for Greenwich versus Southington.

One season ago, Southington eliminated Greenwich from the CIAC Class LL Tournament with a tight 3-2 win.

“It’s the most exciting game we’ve had this season,” Sarkissian said. “They ended our season last year, so when we came in here today we knew we had to push it and give it 110 percent.”

“For the first two sets we were absorbing the pass and they were going either above us or behind us,” Sarkissian continued. “We know that using every single player in the front row, middle, right side, outside, that’s what’s key for us. When we were passing off the net we could only set one person. In the fourth set, we really cleaned it up. We got our passes on the net. Also keeping our serves in that was key, the first couple of sets, we had a couple of errors.”

Against Bridgeport Central on Wednesday, the Cards were victorious, 25-11, 25-11, 25-13. Victoria Sullivan, a sophomore, tallied four kills, 10 digs, 20 assists and three aces for the victors. Armstrong had 10 kills, five digs and one block and junior Aleena Jacobsen contributed 10 digs and five kills to also pace the Cards.

Greenwich’s 3-0 triumph at home against New Canaan today was keyed by Sarkissian’s 13 kills, Bernann’s 27 assists and six digs and Houdre’s 13 digs, six aces and three digs. Sophomore Heidi Zieme had 11 kills, seven digs and four aces.

Reflecting back on Greenwich’s match against Southington, Bernaan said: “I thought that our team did a great job of covering. Defense is such a mentality and overall, we played really well. Most of our ruts were when we couldn’t get a pass but when we did we were able to execute with our middle. We got really strong kills, we were picking up tips and I think we’re starting to flow as a team.”

The Cardinals cap a busy week Saturday when its hosts FCIAC opponent Staples at 10 a.m.

“The biggest thing with our team is that no matter what, we’re always here for each other, we’re a family and we play with heart,” Bernaan noted. “We’re so close to each other and we’ll do anything for each other. We have complete, 100 percent trust in each other.”