Here, in a happy turn of events, are two Baldwinsville volleyball teams that might have successful championship pursuits.
While the girls Bees continue to flatten anyone in the Section III Class AA realm that might challenge them, the boys are picking up plenty of important late-season wins, too.
In last Tuesday’s match against Oswego, B’ville managed to repeat what it did on Sept. 20, defeating the Buccaneers in four sets.
A strong opening set had the Bees win 25-18, following it up by winning the second set 25-20. Then Oswego won the third set 25-20 and was on the brink of sending the match to the five-set limit.
However, B’ville shut that off and won the fourth 26-24 to take the match, having David Cornell pile up 17 kills and Luc Jerome get 16 kills as Aidan Priest had 12 kills and Conor Garvey nine kills.
On the Bees’ back line, Thomas Higman finished with 45 assists, his best total of the season, with Bradford Doubleday earning eight digs to go with three assists. Oswego’s Nate Devinnny, with 32 assists, mostly fed it to Riley Mahoney (11 kills), Cole Pratt (nine kills) and Mike Douglas (seven kills).
This followed, on Oct. 13, a match against Canisius, who would play both the Bees and Cicero-North Syracuse on the same day, managing to edge the Northstars in five sets.
Here, Canisius topped B’ville 25-20, 25-23, 25-22, though each of the sets was close. Thomas Higman earned 27 assists and Doubleday had 15 kills on the Bees’ back line.
Nick Shultz finished with eight kills, just ahead of Connor Garvey, who got six kills. Aidan Priest earned eight digs as he and David Cornell got five kills apiece, Jack Stone adding three kills and two blocks.
A win over Liverpool followed on Thursday night, and B’ville had a chance to build more late-season momentum this week in matches against Living Word Academy and Syracuse.
Still in dominant mode, the B’ville girls handled Henninger 25-10, 25-11, 25-15 last Wednesday night, having still not allowed a set to any Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division foe.
Jenna Garvey, aside from her 19 assists, got four aces, the same total as Alex Molini, Jenna Wallace and Maggie Weigand. Molini got six kills and Wallace four kills as Megan Brecht had a team-best seven kills. Weigand earned 10 digs and Molini got nine digs as Wallace contributed five digs.
B’ville handled Corcoran Friday night 25-10, 25-6, 25-8, getting 24 aces, nine of them from Garvey to go with 22 assists. Molini added eight assists as she got four kills, with Brecht adding four aces and six kills. Maddy Shuler had eight kills and Wallace contributed five kills, with Weigand earning three aces.
Matches against Fayetteville-Manlius and Liverpool early this week will give the girls Bees a preview of possible match-ups in the sectional tournament that starts late this week.
