There was a point in one game last season when Melrose High girls' volleyball coach Scott Celli watched one of his best players, Gina Ciccone, walk off the court in pain. A torn muscle in her ribs had forced her to the sideline. A starter since her sophomore year and a Middlesex League All-Star, Ciccone was the Red Raiders' best outside hitter and Celli needed a replacement. He hardly hesitated. He went to his bench, and pointed to freshman Hannah Brickley. He had as much confidence in her as he did in his starters. So did Ciccone. ``I saw her play,'' Ciccone said. ``She was really good.'' She was so good that she never left the lineup, even when Ciccone returned a few games later. Instead of heading to the bench, Celli kept the youngster on the court, playing her at middle hitter as the squad made a run to the Division 2 North final. This season, Brickley is one of four sophomores starting for an undefeated Red Raiders squad that dominated the Middlesex League, earned the top seed in the Division 2 North sectional, and is looking for nothing less than a championship. Ciccone is one of three senior co-captains along with Lauren Howe and Leslie Hirschfeld, and they've been crucial in balancing youth with experience for a team that has developed a tradition of winning in Celli's seven years as head coach. ``They definitely take the opportunity and they play really well,'' Howe said of the team's younger players. ``Watching us play, you couldn't tell that it was their first year playing on varsity because it came very naturally to them.'' Howe said people looked at the team's youth as a weakness coming into the season. When a program graduates players like Paula and Karen Sen, names like Colleen Hanscom don't show up on anybody's radar screen. But Brickley is once again a league all-star and Hanscom stepped up as the team's setter (a position usually reserved for seniors) and handed out 450 assists; both were critical in the team's 20-0 regular season run that was impossible to overlook. ``I feel like a lot of people at the beginning of the season were underestimating us because all the seasons before we had done pretty well,'' Howe said. ``But I feel like we came back from that and showed everyone it doesn't matter how old we are because we can still play with everyone else.'' More than anything, coach Celli and his assistant Steve Wall instill a sense of tradition that all the girls pick up as soon as they join the team. So even if they've never played before - and most hadn't until their freshman year - they have the desire to pick up the game and learn from older players who are more than willing to teach them. ``We're very lucky that our younger players have been able to take over the roles of our seniors from year to year,'' Celli said. ``I try to tell them to watch the older kids. Do all the things they did to get to that level so they can become that kind of player.'' Melrose fell, 3-0, to Arlington Catholic in last year's sectional final, but the Red Raiders avenged the loss two games before the start of the tournament, beating AC, 3-1, at Melrose. Since 2003, Melrose is 105-12 with four Middlesex League titles and two Division 2 North titles. ``Going into any gym we definitely have a target on our back, wearing our Melrose jerseys,'' Hirschfeld said. The team has been flawless up to this point, but now that they're in the tournament it doesn't matter. ``It's nice to be undefeated,'' Celli said. ``But you want to go undefeated in the state tournament.'' Howe was on the team when Melrose reached the state final in 2005, but she was called up late from the junior varsity squad. Ciccone is the only player who started on that team and she wants badly to return. Experience has taught Hirschfeld to take games one at a time, especially since this is her last season, and her last chance to get to the state title game. Brickley and Hanscom have games left. They are essentially the future. Hirschfeld, on the other hand, keeps the tournament in the now. ``We try not to look ahead.''
Source: The Boston Globe
