Rockets Boys Lacrosse and Volleyball Keep Rolling in the Quarterfinals

June 8, 2024 • Both Needham Boys Volleyball and Lacrosse punched their tickets to the State Semis with wins on Friday.

Heading into the second weekend of June and the second weekend of the 2024 MIAA Spring Playoffs, Boys Volleyball and Boys Lacrosse were still alive. And on Friday night they started their Quarterfinal matchups at the same time, about seventeen miles away from each other.

Boys Volleyball, the three time defending MIAA Division 1 State Champs and the #1 seed once again, hosted #8 Brookline, who they defeated twice during the Bay State Conference regular season. The Rockets got to this point with a pair of wins, including a three set sweep over #17 Andover in the Round of 16 on Wednesday night at the A Gym.

On Friday night they took the first two sets by identical scores of 25-16 before dropping a tightly contested third set 27-25, then coming back and taking the fourth set 25-17.

#7 Boys Lacrosse won a pair of games at home to get to the Quarterfinals, with a hard fought 9-6 win at home against Winchester Tuesday. Taking to the road, the Rockets visited Lincoln-Sudbury, a team they had lost to earlier in the season and early on, fell behind 3-0. But Needham would score eight of the next nine goals, taking an 8-4 lead at halftime and rolling to a 14-7 upset win.

Senior Spencer Chapman led Needham with four goals, while another Senior, Sean Riley, had three. Freshman Matt Ledbury had a goal and three assists.

Last weekend, Needham Baseball won a preliminary round game at home, but then traveled to the #7 seed St. John’s Prep. Despite taking a 4-0 lead in the early innings, the Rockets couldn’t hold the lead, falling 8-3.

After winning a big first round game at the new McLeod Field last week, the fantastic run by Needham Softball ended in the Round of 16, as the Rockets were pounded at #7 St. Paul Diocesan 12-0. This ends the historic Rockets career of Maddie Baker, who surpassed 100 hits and is now headed to Bentley to play for the Falcons.

Girls Lacrosse is also sending some of their seniors to play the next level, with Lily Schmalz going to Navy, Ellie Thomas to New Hampshire and Rian Sullivan to Bard. After winning their first round game, the #11 Rockets fell short at North Andover, 12-9.

Looking ahead, Boys Volleyball awaits the winner of Saturday’s Milford-Methuen Quarterfinal in the MIAA Division 1 Semifinal round. Boys Lacrosse faces the winner of a Saturday game as well, Acton-Boxborough  vs. Andover.

Here is video from the final point of the Boys Volleyball Quarterfinal win over Brookline, courtesy of our Needham Channel Instagram feed:

 

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TNC Sports Producer Kristen Connors has highlights from the Boys Lacrosse and Boys Volleyball games from earlier this week, which you can see here:

The highlights above ran as part of the Needham Channel News, a weekly newscast airing on The Needham Channel every Thursday at 7:30pm. The Needham Channel News can be found on the Community Channel: Comcast 9, Astound 15 and Verizon 29. Most Thursdays it also can be viewed on our HD Channel on Verizon 2129, Astound 613 and streaming on this site.

For full brackets of each sport, head to the tournament section of the MIAA website: https://miaa.net/tournament-central/ To keep updated on the Rockets playoff journey, check out our X page: @tnc_sports

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