True, the Baldwinsville girls volleyball team has just three seniors on its roster, and through early-season tournament play head coach Mary Jo Cerqua said there was plenty of improvement to be made.
Still, the Bees are the standard in the local Class AA ranks until someone proves otherwise, and when West Genesee made its attempt Tuesday night, B’ville cast aside the challenge in a three-set sweep.
When these same teams met in this same gym in Camillus one season ago, B’ville gave Cerqua her 500th career victory. Here, there were no milestones, just another complete effort from a Bees side that makes such efforts routine.
Other than a few errant serves, B’ville did little wrong in the first set, breaking it open with seven consecutive points on Katie Welcher’s serve. The combination of power, defense and hustle created a 25-7 margin.
And it continued into the second set with the Bees going on a 15-3 run to erase an early 2-1 deficit. WG answered with its only strong run of the match, an 11-7 push that made B’ville have to work a bit harder to close out that set 25-16.
The Bees gave up the first point of the third set – and then scored 10 in a row on Maddie Stone’s serve. B’ville claimed the set 25-10 as Stone finished with 24 assists and four aces, with Sophia Cronk adding seven kills and three aces. Sophmore Rileigh Kimball had seven kills and two aces as Welcher got four kills, three blocks and two aces.
