V’Girls undefeated in league play, gunning for a title
It happens every year, but each year it catches me by surprise.
There’s a mid-season slump in intensity, then all of the sudden it seems that we’re at the end of league play and into the playoffs. Luckily, we had some inspiration this past week. Katy Binder, class of 2013 and volleyball alum, was home for the week and assisted for three days at practice. It was great to have her older, yet still youthful guidance for the current athletes in the program.
The varsity squad had back-to-back matches on October 16 and 17, facing Ross and the Pierson Whalers. The JV team, in an unusual break from a very busy schedule, just played the Ross Cosmos.
The last time the JV faced Ross, they came away with a 25-5, 25-15, 25-10 win. By October 16, Ross had shown some improvement, but still were swept 25-10, 25-11 and 25-22. Our team spread the kills around with Liz Larsen, Sarah Lewis, and Phoebe Starzee each racking up five apiece and Nicolette Frasco having an outstanding day with seven kills. With 28 points scored on aces alone, almost every player contributed with her serve. Issie Sherman had two aces, a career high for her.
Coach Jim Theinert has been mindful of challenging each player so she continues to grow and learn throughout the season. Setter Jaime Castillo validated that faith by showing her increased confidence in the third set. Genesis Urbaez and Julia Labrozzi have each solidified their favorite position as outside hitters, but also are flexible enough to change as team needs dictate.
The JV team is now an outstanding 10-2 on the season with four matches to go before winding up the season on October 29.
Although playing unevenly throughout the year, Ross has a few good players who can surprise with good defense or a hard hit. With low expectations for a challenging match, the Island squad started sloppily, missing 7 serves. Despite the impressive looking first set score of 25-13, I was unhappy — we had gift wrapped over half their point total.
Refocusing on the second set, the team brought some spark. Amira Lawrence had a terrific day at the net, hitting two consecutive Ross overpasses down hard to start the set. She also had a banner day blocking the Cosmos. We’ve been working on a couple of new combination plays in practice and with confidence running high and nice passes coming in from Melissa Frasco and Alexis Perlaki, setter Kenna McCarthy challenged the offense to step it up. While still a work in progress, it was great to see the focus and excitement to try something new. The markedly better played second set ended 25-16.
In the third set we tried switching the line up. Colibri Lopez hit in the middle, getting some nice touches on blocks and scoring on an overpass. Senior captain Taylor Rando had excellent hustles to keep the erratic Ross balls from hitting the floor. Kelly Colligan served 13 straight, getting us out to a 13-0 lead before I asked her to try a new, more difficult serve. Despite some nice effort on the Ross court, the Blue and Gray continued to dominate and ended with a 25-5 final score to sweep the match.
The next day the varsity team faced the Pierson Whalers. Pierson only has a varsity team this season, and they are quite young with the majority of the team sophomores. Young teams often improve dramatically throughout the season, and Pierson has quite a bit of height, so despite their 3-6 record, coaches stressed the importance of not underestimating them. In addition, Lawrence was out sick, which meant we needed to shuffle our starting lineup.
The Islanders started strongly, with Emily Hyatt and McCarthy teaming up for a nice block. Colligan had a nice down-the-line shot that had the Pierson libero looking in the wrong direction, and Michalak had a dramatic “pancake,“ just barely getting her hand between the ball and the floor to save the point at 17-9. Lopez heeded my urging to “block for points” shutting down a Whaler hit to close out the first set 25-12.
The easy victory in the first stanza seemed to lower the team’s intensity, and we missed two serves in a row at the start of the second. I was uneasy as players were joking on the court.
But with back-to-back aces from Rando we had a comfortable lead at 13-8 before suddenly being struck with a string of errors. Missed serves, hits into the net, and miscommunication on defense lead to tenseness on the court and an 18-14 Pierson lead. Kaasik chipped in a kill to stop the slide, but despite a Blue and Gray back-to-the-wall comeback effort at 17-24, the Whalers got the last point 25-22, and their first set victory over us in five years.
Chastened, the third set featured crisper playing and a 25-20 Island victory. However, Pierson was playing with more confidence and varsity matches require three out of five wins for the match victory. The fourth and final set was much more closely played. Michalak scored four kills to end the match with 14, while McCarthy contributed two kills with her rhythm-destroying setter dumps. A fight to the end, the Blue and Gray ended with a 25-23 win.
With Greenport and Port Jeff in our sights, and a fast-improved McGann-Mercy left to play, we have our work cut out for us as we continue to strive for the League VIII title. Come to the gym today, October 23, for our last home game as we have our senior send-off and celebrate the annual Dig Pink breast cancer awareness and fundraiser. JV begins at 4:30, with the varsity following.
Get your pink on and come support the team and the cause!
