The playoff tension was palpable as fans piled into the gym for Redwood’s varsity girls’ volleyball team’s first playoff game. The game lived up to the hype as Redwood prevailed in a five-set thriller against Justin-Siena by a score of 25-17, 21-25, 25-23, 25-27, and 15-13.

“We made a lot of unforced errors that we talked about cleaning up and we have to understand our matchups better,” said head coach Katie Pease, who is coaching in her final season after announcing her retirement. “We have to continue to free up our hitters, keep our hitting percentage up, running the two (a slower, higher middle set) and flip-flopping our right sides.”

The Giants led the Braves at moments in each set, but had trouble keeping the lead following difficulties in receiving serves during the second and fourth sets.

Injuries to junior right side hitter Desi D’Ancona and senior outside hitter Claire Jackson were a cause for some of Redwood’s defensive issues as they were forced to hit with their forearms instead of hands, according to Pease.  

The Giants lost the second set, but responded strongly in the third set, quickly gaining a 7-1 lead. Justin-Siena took the lead later in the set, but after a successful timeout, the Giants regained their composure and won the set.

“We began to play individually which makes it really hard. After Katie called the timeout, we started to play like a team again,” Jackson said. “We need to minimize our unforced errors, I think we missed ten serves, I stepped under the net once, and things like that that we can’t do.”

The loss ends the Braves’ season, but coach Molly Anibale was proud of her team’s effort.

“We were coming off tough games against Branson and San Marin which helped us prepare for tough situations like this,” Anibale said.

Anibale said that she prepared her team to go on the offensive in order to attempt to steal this game from the Giants.

“We were trying to serve aggressively, go all out and play some defense behind it,” Anibale said. “We came into the game as the underdog and we took them to the end. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

The Giants will now shift their attention to Branson, who they play tonight at 7 p.m. The teams each won one game in their two games against eachother this season.

“We expect [Branson] to bring tough defense and strong serving. I think that if we can give a maximum effort on defense and keep our serve-receive clean, we should be able to go out and win,” Pease said. “It is going to be tight. I expect it go four or five and we are going to have to play some good, clean volleyball.”