Milford celebrates winning a point during Saturday's Division II championship match against Somersworth Saturday at Pinkerton Academy. (Photo by Dan Doyon)

DERRY – Milford High School senior captain Abigail Krulis and her volleyball coach Haley Patched arrived together for a memorable ride that ended with a loss to Coe-Brown in the 2021 Division II championship match.

They got their final chance to win a title together this season when the Spartans took on undefeated Somersworth in this year’s championship match, but the Hilltoppers were too strong.

After winning the first set, No. 3 Milford was overwhelmed by top-seeded Somersworth in the next three steps towards a 3-1 victory that capped off a 22-0 season. The set scores were 23-25, 25-18, 25-16 and 25-16.

“I’m so proud I get to experience such a thing, a lot of people don’t,” Krulis said. “A lot of people don’t even make the playoffs, so to be able to start and finish and start my high school career like this was truly awesome.”

Milford (17-3) was seeking the program’s third championship, as the only two came when it beat Somersworth and Hollis for back-to-back Class I titles in 2001 and 2002. The Spartans advanced to Saturday’s game with Wednesday’s 3-2 semifinal win over Coe-Brown.

“This team has so much talent and so much potential and I think they got a little scared,” Milford coach Haley Patch said. “Somersworth is an incredible team and they’re so talented and it took a lot of gas. You need to be on your A game the whole match and you can’t let up against a team like Somersworth.”

The Hilltoppers undefeated run towards the championship came after spending the past three seasons in Division III. Somersworth split the past two Division III championship matches with Inter-Lakes before moving up.

Somersworth’s last Division II/Class I championship came when it beat Milford in 2000.

“We knew we were good enough, but not being up here in a few years I didn’t see any of these teams,” Somersworth coach Steve Hodsdon said. I didn’t scout them before we came up so we didn’t know who we were going up against and I didn’t know how our style would match styles of other teams, but it worked out pretty well.”

Milford (17-3) showed why it belonged in the title game when the Spartans took an 18-16 lead during Set 1. The set was tied when an unforced error by Somersworth led to Milford closing out the 25-23 win.

“We brought the energy, we brought the want to win and I don’t think they wanted it as much in the first set as we wanted it,” Krulis said. “They weren’t awake and they weren’t expecting us. We’ve been kind of under the radar the whole season. We just came out and they weren’t ready.”

The first-set loss was evidently the wake-up call Somersworth needed, as the Hilltoppers evened the match at 1-1 after pulling away midway through Set 2.

Somersworth continued to power up by jumping out to a 12-6 start in the third set lead. Milford closed to within 14-10, but a block by Somersworth’s Savanna Comeau sparked an 11-6 finish to set that included a kill from Saya McKay (16 kills, 16 digs) and Eimily Rinon, along with a block from Paige Demers.

“They outplayed us by a lot in that first set, we had a hard time with their serves and they were much smarter than us in the first set,” Hodsdon said. “We said to them that we didn’t play our game at all and we only lost by two, so go out there and play your game.”

Despite the loss, Patch was thrilled with the progression her team made that’ll also hopefully lead to future success.

“I absolutely thought we could get here, this team has so much depth and that’s something I cherished from the beginning,” Patch said. “We had freshmen subbing in for seniors at times. It’s kind of exciting for Milford volleyball in the future.