The Nashua North girls volleyball team huddles during its Division I semiifinal match vs. Pinkerton Academy in Derry.(Photo by Jack Belanger)

PINKERTON- For one set, the No. 5 Nashua North Volleyball team solved how to beat the top-seeded Pinkerton Academy. The trio of Aaliyah Price-Gooden, Riley Eaton, and Liv Townsend represented one of the tallest front lines in the state, with Price-Gooden and Townsend over six-feet-tall, making spikes a challenge to get through.

Sending the ball side-to-side, using second hits for tips over the net, and changing spikes up for popping balls between the lines, the Titans executed their game plan right out of the gates, taking an early 7-2 lead.

North even survived a 7-1 response run from Pinkerton. Down 14-12, a kill from senior Hayley Maurhoff and an ace from sophomore Logan Sartor tied the game and swung the momentum back to the Titans. An ace from senior Kylie Rizzo made the score 22-18 and helped win the first set 25-22.

“We had nothing to lose,” Nashua North coach Cassandra Defosses said. “Just attack. We came in as the underdogs and that’s what we wanted. Keep them nervous, keep them guessing. And they did that.”

Unfortunately, the Astros dropped only nine sets all year for a reason. After making adjustments between sets, Pinkerton was off and running, winning the next three sets to take the NHIAA Division I semifinals 3-1 at its home court on Tuesday.

“They did an amazing job,” Pinkerton head coach Todd Royce said. “They played defense really well. They knew what we were going to do and came in with a really good game plan. It showed in that first game. They are a really tough team.”

Dropping the regular season meeting 3-0, the Titans knew they had to be the aggressors from the first serve in order to have a chance to victory. Winning the first set validated the team’s preparation and proved they could compete with the best team in the state.

“We tried to pull off and have an extra defender. We tried to make a couple of adjustments and in the end that kept us in there for a little bit. Our team fought and that’s all we asked of them,” Desfosses said.

Royce made the proper adjustments after the first set and the Astros went on the attack for the rest of the match. They found their hitters in the right spots and the spikes starting falling. Pinkerton stifled Nashua North in the second set easily 25-9.

“They were dropping the ball into open spots,” Royce said. “We tried making adjustments in the additional games to cover up the spots. Then they adjusted again after the second

game. They do a really good job of find spots on the floor and wreaking havoc on the defense.”

The Titans pushed hard to pull out Set Three, scoring five straight points to tie the game at 18. Rizzo scored on multiple well-placed hits. After calling a timeout, the Astros scored the next four points, eventually winning the set 25-20 to go up 2-1.

In the fourth and final set, the Titans fought as much as they could. After falling behind 5-0, Desfosses called a timeout before the score got lopsided. From there, Maurhoff recorded a kill and a block to get a run going for the Titans. An ace from Rizzo cut the score to 11-10 before the Titans scored the next point to tie the set.

But the Astros could be held off for so long. The front line got in sync and tallied the next eight point to pull ahead for good, taking the semifinals 25-15 and setting up a finals meeting against Dover.

As for Nashua, after back-to-back seasons losing in the first round as a double-digit seed, a run to the semifinals was not out of the question from day one.

“If you were to look at us preseason and where people were ranking us, I looked at coach (Erin Cooke) and was like ‘Okay, that’s fine let them underestimate us.’,” Desfosses said. “We knew what this team had. We are ready for redemption next year.”