By pushing Baldwinsville to four sets in their Sept. 20 match, the Liverpool girls volleyball team established itself, for the moment, as the main threat to the Bees’ long-held Section III Class AA crown.
That point was reinforced by last Wednesday night’s match between the Warriors and 6-2 West Genesee, which went to five sets before Liverpool came out on top.
Easy wins by equal 25-15 margins in the first two sets suggested a Warriors sweep, but the Wildcats roared back to take the third and fourth sets by the same score of 25-21. The fifth set was also close, but Liverpool revived just in time to defeat WG 25-20.
Madison Lapoint had 16 kills and five aces, with Leahana Keeling getting 12 kills, two blocks, two aces and two assists. Toria Betelak managed 11 kills and Sophie Vangelov got eight kills to go with 19 assists. Sydney Caviness managed 20 assists and Ashley Teixeira had 17 digs as Alicia Nash earned five aces, five blocks and three kills.
WG had plenty of standouts of its own, including Anna Snyder, who amassed 45 assists and 14 digs. Audrey Dennis had 14 kills and 18 digs, with Carolyn King getting 18 kills, three blocks and three digs as Arlea Vecchio had 12 digs and Madison Stanton 11 digs.
As that went on, it was the turn of Cicero-North Syracuse to tackle B’ville last Wednesday night, and the Northstars got swept by the Bees 25-10, 25-11, 25-15.
Olivia Salvador had nine digs, with Kaylin VanAuken earning five assists and four digs. Madelyn Murray got three kills, with Kim Barry and Brooke Nicolaos also earning four digs. Maddie Stone led B’ville with 29 assists, four aces and four kills behind Katie Welcher (11 kills), Rileigh Kimball (10 kills) and Kristen Liu (seven kills).
Before that, Liverpool had handled Henninger 25-7, 25-18, 25-5 last Monday night as Caviness earned 14 assists and Vangelov got 12 assists. Lapoint had a team-best 10 kills as Keeling got four kills. Betelak got four aces as she and Hayley Feldt both earned three kills. Delaney Johnson also had four aces.
C-NS played again Thursday and, other than a close second set, could not keep up with Fayetteville-Manlius in a 25-12, 29-27, 25-19 defeat to the Hornets. Barry had five assists and Salvador 16 digs, but no Northstars player had more than Olivia Johnson’s total of three kills as she added six digs.
Still undefeated in boys volleyball, Cicero-North Syracuse got into an epic second set in last Thursday’s match against Central Square that proved a winner – even though the Northstars lost that set.
Having won the opener by a big 25-9 margin, C-NS found itself in a protracted second set where both sides squandered several set points. Finally, the Redhawks took that set 34-32, but was so drained by the battle that the Northstars wore them down, pulling out the third set 25-21 and dominating the fourth set 25-10.
Tristen Cummings managed 35 assists, seven kills, four blocks and three aces, with Josh Bigford earning 24 kills. Trent Caviness helped with nine kills, four assists, three aces and five digs as Dylan Gesser had seven digs. Josh Pickard, Jake DenBleyker and Kyle Alberici had three kills apiece.
Before this, C-NS swept Jamesville-DeWitt 25-15, 25-16, 25-11 last Tuesday night, with Bigford getting six aces to go with 12 kills, two blocks and two assists. Alberici had six kills, with Cummings earning 22 assists, four kills, two aces and two blocks. Pickard had four aces.
Liverpool broke into the win column last Tuesday against the combined Syracuse City team, handling the first set 25-17, and then surviving a long second set 28-26 before the Warriors closed it out 25-15 in the third.
Darian Devereaux paced Liverpool with nine kills. Connor Jones had eight kills and four assists, while Eric Baker contributed five kills. Hunter Vang and Vincent Lee got three aces apiece, Vang adding three kills.
