The postseason began for Greenwich Academy’s varsity volleyball team, which hosted Hamden Hall Country Day School in the quarterfinal-round of the FAA Volleyball Tournament on Nov. 3rd and the Gators left little doubt that they were going to clear their first obstacle on their way to what they hope, is their journey to the tournament’s championship match.

Second-seeded Greenwich Academy continued its impressive season in the FAA, sweeping past seventh-seeded Hamden Hall, 3-0, in the FAA Tournament quarterfinals. GA, which sports a superb record of 10-2 in the FAA, hosts third-seeded Greens Farms Academy, which also had a 10-2 record against its FAA opponents, in today’s 4 p.m. FAA Tournament semifinals.

The Gators defeated the Hornets in the FAA quarterfinals by set scores of 25-22, 25-20, 25-11.

“They’re such a fun team to play, they’re scrappy,” Greenwich Academy senior co-captain Issy Fottrell said of Hamden Hall. “We came wanting to win and we worked together well. We kept focusing on serve receive, that’s the big thing we’ve been working on.”

Passing the serve well and executing its offense efficiently, GA succeeded in gaining the momentum back each time visiting Hamden Hall cut into its lead and made a run.

“They always give us a great game, I think the first set was a really close game,” GA senior co-captain Devon Mahaffy said. “They gave us a lot of runs that we had to stop and that’s kind of one of the things we struggle with – so stopping those runs and getting the lead back so we could turn around that game was really good.”

Fottrell, Mahaffy and Gioia Brown supplied powerful hitting for the Gators in this quarterfinal-round matchup, while Caroline Brower, helped facilitate the offense with well-placed sets.

“It was really exciting, Hamden Hall did really good and I think we just wanted to come in really strong, because we’ve been starting off a little slow some games,” Brower said. ” But we started off really strong and every time we got down, we shook off any mistakes and we just got right back into it. It helped having serving runs. It helped us gain momentum.”

An ace by Tinsley Tarifi gave GA a 16-13 lead in the first game versus Hamden Hall. Browns’ kill made it 19-16 in favor of the Gators later in the opening set. Mahaffy’s kill put the hosts ahead, 23-18 and Brower’s tip closed out the first set, which Greenwich Academy won, 25-22.

“We played really well, today we came out firing, we played well right off the start and finished them off as fast as we could,” GA assistant coach Stephen Caddy noted.

In the second set, Fottrell hit a well-placed kill, giving the hosts an 8-6 edge. After the Hornets tied the score at 11-11, Mahaffy put down a kill, Dakota Barlow posted a kill and Brown served an ace, giving Greenwich Academy a 14-11 advantage – one they would not relinquish.

Another Mahaffy ace put GA on top, 22-13. Fottrell’s kill sealed the second set, giving the home team a 25-20 victory.

“Defensively, we played really well,” Caddy said. “Mairin Butler was around the net and picked up a lot of tips and was around the net getting everything up. Caroline’s setting was phenomenal as always.”

The Gators opened a comfortable lead in the third set and never looked back. The score was tied at 6-6, then GA won seven straight points to seize a 13-6 advantage. Fottrell exhibited stellar serving during the pivotal run, tallying a pair of aces. The victors also capitalized on their strong hitting throughout.

“Being confident in swinging, trusting ourselves and finding the spots in every point were the keys for us,” Fottrell noted. “The communication also really helped us out.”

A Brower kill raised GA’s lead to 19-8 and a Butler ace made the score 22-10 later in the Gator’s impressive third set against the Hornets.

“We went off and put away the ball and put away the game,” Mahaffy noted. “We said, let’s go out there, let’s do our best and let’s put it away.”

Greenwich Academy defeated Greens Farms Academy in a tight match during the regular season, so today’s FAA semifinals should be an exciting affair. GFA advanced to the tourney’s semifinal-round by defeating sixth-seeded Sacred Heart Greenwich, 3-0, in the quarterfinal-round.

In the FAA Tournament’s other semifinal-round match, top-seeded King School hosts fourth-seeded Greenwich Country Day School today at 4:45 p.m.

Greenwich Country Day was victorious against fifth-seeded Hopkins School, 3-1, in the FAA quarterfinals.

“This is our best finish in my four years, finishing second,” Mahaffy noted. “I’m really proud of our team. It has been a really fun season. I’m sad, this is my last run at volleyball, so it’s fun to finish it out.”

“We just need to bring the same intensity, we obviously, want to go as far as we can,” Fottrell said. “We have to start strong on Wednesday.”

“We had a really good game against them earlier and I’m looking forward to another strong rematch,” Caddy said of the semifinal-round matchup.