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Owls end Salem's 7-year, 125-match win streak

Friday, May, 27 By Steve Palladino
Staff writer

The magnitude of what had just happened didn’t hit Conor Dube until he saw a former teammate.
Just moments after putting an end to the area’s longest high school volleyball winning streak, Dube received a big congratulations from former teammate and current Lasell College player Alex Mill who proclaimed “you just made history!!!”
And that’s what Timberlane did.
The host Owls not only ended Salem’s 125-match streak, a streak that started when the program began seven years ago, but they did it in stunning fashion by overcoming a 2-0 deficit to win the last three games, 25-23, 25-23, 15-12.
“It is really amazing,” said Dube a senior who is on his way to Princeton this fall. “This is one of the biggest nights in Timberlane volleyball history, to this point.”
The Owls (12-2) dropped the first two games, 25-18 and 28-26, before bouncing back.
Max LaRoche and Joe Coye each led Timberlane with 12 kills and 10 blocks each. Dube had 35 assists and Tom Matatall had 28 service points and 15 digs.
“After a couple of minutes of celebrating, it hit me what we just did,” said LaRoche, who will attend Boston University this fall. “It was exhilarating.  All the students just came out of the stands on to the floor. It was great.”
The Owls feature a very small roster, with only 11 players and only two with prior varsity experience prior to this year, according to Owl head coach John Dube.
“Even when we were down 2-0 (in games) we knew that we just had to be steady and consistent,” said coach Dube. “We didn’t do anything different in games three, four and five. “We just have a lot of heart on this team. I am so proud of this team, they just kept plugging away.”
I felt that fourth game was the key for us,’ said John Dube. “The guys all felt ‘we’ve got this.’  It was pretty amazing to watch.”
Although they won’t dominate the stat sheet, Clay Campbell and Tim Sullivan each came up with some key kills in the fourth and fifth games. Erik Kaasila registered four huge blocks in the last two games.
Gracious in defeat, Salem head coach Scott Wright said that this loss will be a good test for his team.
“(The end of the winning streak) was going to happen, eventually,” said Wright. “I am more anxious to see how the kids react to this loss when we play again on Tuesday. Their reaction will be more important than the streak.”
Wright also tipped his hat to a solid Timberlane team.  “They looked hungrier than we did,” he said. “They certainly had a lot of heart and hustle. They made some good game adjustments and covered their blockers.
“We gave up a lot of points and couldn’t come back from the deficit,” said Wright.
Zack Meisner and Corey Forrest led Salem with 17 kills each. Joe Gallant had nine blocks and Alex Gomes had 45 assists.
LaRoche and Conor Dube said they will celebrate, but not lose focus of the bigger picture.  
“Obviously, it is a great win,” said the younger Dube.  “But it is a regular season league win. It is something that we can celebrate but Monday we have to get back to work. There is a bigger picture at the end of the regular season and the playoffs.”