For the Baldwinsville girls volleyball team, the whole point of going through five in-season tournaments along with its usual slate of league matches was to deal with every possible situation that could arise when the matches counted most.
Of course, the easy way to deal with things is win big, as the top-seeded Bees did again in Wednesday’s Section III Class AA semifinal, an emphatic sweep over no. 4 seed West Genesee.
Having already topped the Wildcats in three sets during both of their regular-season encounters, B’ville, well-rested and eager to start the playoffs, smashed its way to a 25-8 win in the first set.
Though each of the ensuing two sets was a bit closer, the Bees still won them by equal 25-14 margins, fueled by a front line that eagerly shared what Maddie Stone was giving to them through her 26 assists.
Sophia Cronk had a team-best nine kills, but Rileigh Kimball was close behind, earning eight kills and two blocks as Katie Welcher gained seven kills, three blocks and three aces. Kristen Liu added four kills as Summer McClintic finished with seven digs.
And this leads to next Tuesday’s sectional final at Cicero-North Syracuse, where the Bees meet no. 2 seed Liverpool following the Warriors’ sweep of Fayetteville-Manlius in the other semifinal. The match starts at 6 p.m.
On Thursday night, the Baldwinsville boys volleyball team hoped to return to the sectional final against top seed C-NS, but that would require going to Fayetteville-Manlius and beating the Hornets Thursday night – which it did, in four close sets.
They had split two regular-season meetings, B’ville prevailing in five sets Sept. 15 before falling to F-M in four sets a few weeks later. The third encounter was just as competitive as the others.
F-M pulled out the opening set 25-23, only to have B’ville claim the second set 25-21. A hard-fought third set saw the Bees claim it, 25-22, to go in front.
Though the Hornets nearly forced it to a fifth set, B’ville held them off in a 25-23 decision and won the match, having seen Tyler Aiello put away 22 kills and add seven digs as Dan Cerqua earned a career-best 45 assists.
Nate Johns finished with 11 kills and five digs, while Luc Jerome got six kills. Cole Zsemyle earned six aces and five blocks, with Aidan Priest gaining 17 digs as David Cornell produced three aces, three kills and five digs.
For F-M, Chris Perry finished with 35 assists, his passes going to Aaron Costanza (13 kills), Joe Powless (11 kills) and Cade Collum (nine kills). Jordan Glazier got 12 digs, with Costanza getting seven digs. Powless and Dean Assenza both got six digs as Perry had five digs.
B’ville’s win means a third chance against a C-NS side that handled them a year ago in the sectional final and beat the Bees twice more this fall.
