This story originally ran in The Standard-Times on Nov. 3, 2002.

By Nick Tavares
Standard-Times correspondent

NEW BEDFORD -- The Whalers defense and passing stepped up in yesterday's tournament opener at just the right time as the New Bedford girls volleyball team were able to advance defeating Dartmouth in three games, 30-12, 30-19, 30-18.

"I'm very happy with the way we played," said New Bedford head coach Neil Macedo. "Defensively it was one of our better days, especially passing the serve, that's where we've had trouble in the past."

Tracy Sedlack and Lindsay Parker dominated the front of the net as they have all season long, but Casey Martins and Meagan Belanger helped get them there, with Martins going 9-9 in passing while Belanger went 9-10.

"Casey and Meagan played outstanding today. It's easy to see all the kills with Tracy and Lindsay, but without those two girls passing like that, they never would've gotten the ball."

Sedlack set both the tempo of the game as well ,as a school record with the match's first point breaking Katie Toomey's previous record for kills with her 203rd with a spike right to the middle of the court setting up a lopsided first game for New Bedford (16-5).

"Well obviously, Tracy has had a great seaso," said Macedo "and tonight she and Lindsay really stepped it up."

Sedlack ended the night with 12 kills, extending her new season record to 214.

Katie Toomey is currently New Bedford's jayvee volleyball coach.

Dartmouth (10-9) would answer back in the second game, taking an 8-7 lead at one point and keeping it close the whole way. Britney Coyle and Brittany Rodrigues each came up with two kills while Rachel Lassey and Kate Souza each came up with four digs to keep the Indians going.

Game 3 saw more tough volleys on each side, but again New Bedford was able to hold off Dartmouth, who were able to stay in with key serves and tough digs.

"We knew we had our work cut out for us," said Dartmouth head coach Rochelle Gaydou, "and it's just unfortunate that the long volleys didn't always fall in our direction, but we worked hard."

New Bedford's servers were usually on target last night, with Parker getting three consecutive aces to start game two (five overall), while Jenn Marder had 17 service points with three aces for the match.

The Whalers will now focus on Monday when they will face the winner of last night's Whitman Hanson and North Attleboro.

"Monday, we're going to do the same thing we did tonight," said Macedo. "Obviously whatever it was we did tonight worked. We'll stick with our game and we've played much better today than we have all season."

This story appeared on Page E1 of The Standard-Times on November 3, 2002.