The Cumberland Clippers's road trip will continue as they head out to face the Middletown Islanders at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Cumberland will be strutting in after a win while Middletown will be coming in after a defeat.
Last Thursday, Cumberland made easy work of Exeter-West Greenwich and carried off a 3-0 victory.
While Cumberland won a shutout, things came down to the wire in the third set they played. The match finished with set scores of 25-20, 25-10, 25-22.
Meanwhile, Middletown faced Barrington in a battle between two of the state's top teams on Thursday. Middletown fell just short of Barrington by a score of 3-2. The loss continues a trend for the Islanders in their matchups with the Eagles: they've now lost three in a row.
Middletown took Barrington into a fifth set but they suffered a heartbreaking six-point loss. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 25-23, 17-25, 22-25, 25-18, 15-9.
Even though they lost, Middletown was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 15 aces. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now served at least six aces in 14 consecutive matches.
Cumberland is on a roll lately: they've won four of their last five matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 8-9 record this season. As for Middletown, they moved to 10-5 with that defeat, which also ended their four-game winning streak.
Cumberland was able to grind out a solid win over Middletown when the teams last played back in October of 2023, winning 3-1. Will Cumberland repeat their success, or does Middletown have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
