Bishop Guertin's Ava Steiniger makes a hit that Titans Amelia Hebert, left, and Ruby Zeman try to block during Wednesday's season opening match for both at the Colligadome. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The Bishop Guertin School girls volleyball team has one purpose in mind.

“Our goal is to win,” Cards senior hitter and 2025 Telegraph Player of the Year Caitlin Harrington said.

Harrington will play a key role in that, as she did in BG’s 3-0 win Wednesday night over city rival and one of last year’s Final Four teams, Nashua North.

The Titans got off to a strong start, leading the first set 15-7, before Harrington’s serving got the Cards on a 6-0 run that became an 18-4 run. The match was never the same, and Guertin prevailed by a 25-19, 25-18, 25-18 tally.

“Caitlin’s the leader, she’s the best player on the team,” Cards coach Matt Erb said. “When she goes back (to serve), she takes that seriously. As soon as we knew we got the momentum back – and we were down by quite a bit – I said after that first set, “Guys, they’re (the Titans) down now, let’s take advantage.We came back. Now they’re down, they just blew a lead, let’s keep going, let’s keep going, let’s keep battling.”

“I went back serving, and I knew we needed to go on a run,” Harrington said. “It was a crucial moment. I just had to go, not miss a serve, and stay in the game. And that’s what happened.”

“Sometimes all it takes is that one little thing,” North coach Cassandre Desfosses said, referring to Harrington’s service run. “But we’ve got to learn that we’ve got to get past it, and get through it. We’ll make the adjustments. The good thing is we’ve got some new players and some new moving parts that we’re going to start to figure out how to use, and once we do that, we’re going to get to where we can be.”

And that should be as a bonafide contender. All three sets just featured BG runs. They Cards were down 15-13 in the second set, but another run (12-3) helped them close out a 25-18 win, and BG took a close 10-10 set three into a 20-14 lead and that was pretty much that.

Guertin tried its best to neutralize North’s tall net players, 5-foot-11 Hannah Perez and 6-0 Amelia Hebert, who were keys in the Titans’ early lead. “And we tried to keep the ball away from Patricia (So), she’s really good too,” Erb said.

Guertin doesn’t just have Harrington. Another hitter who really established herself was junior Ava Steiniger.

“She’s learning, and she had a great game tonight,” Erb said. “We’re looking for weapons all-around. We’ve got Harrington, and now we’ve got Steiniger.”

Bishop Guertin’s Claudia Daniel goes up to block a hit by Nashua North’s Amelia Hebert during Wednesday night’s season opener for both at the Colligadome. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Now the season is off and running.

“I still think we have a lot of room for growth, which makes me happy,” Desfosses said, feeling the Titans can improve their passing. “I think this team is capable of a lot of good things.”

Which is why Erb took great pride in his team getting this win. He remembered how his team rallied from 2-0 down to beat the Titans,and didn’t want that to happen last night in reverse. “We wanted to make sure we finished the job early.

“North’s a rival. It was huge. We respect that team. We knew they’d be good. We knew we’d have to bring our best.”