For the most part, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls volleyball team proved itself against most of its Salt City Atheltic Conference Metro division opponents, but one remained out of reach.
That was Baldwinsville, long the dominant area large-school program, who hosted the Hornets last Tuesday night at Baker High School and, for the second time this fall, prevailed in a three-set sweep.
Trying to improve upon its previous defeat to B’ville on Sept. 28, F-M instead lost the first set 25-7. It played much better in the next two sets, yet still was unable to keep up as the Bees won each of them by equal 25-19 margins.
Sophie Thomas still finished with 16 assists, passing it to Rachel Quilty-Koval, who had six kills, and Juliana Myagkota, who got five kills. Kendra Broddus got three kills as she and Nina Avery both had seven digs as Myagkota got 13 digs and Quilty-Koval had eight digs.
For B’ville, Rileigh Kimball finished with 13 kills and three aces, while Maggie Weigand excelled on defense with 19 digs. Jenna Garvey had 15 assists, with Summer McClintic getting 12 assists, plus five kills, two blocks, four digs and two aces.
Tough as this was, a five-set defeat to Cicero-North Syracuse on Thursday stung the Hornets more because, after dropping the first two sets 25-23 and 25-18, it won the next two sets 25-17 and 25-14, appearing to take charge.
But C-NS won the final set 25-19 despite Thomas running her total to 44 assists and Quilty-Koval getting 18 kills, with Myagkota adding eight kills and Broddus adding six kills.
On the Northstars’ side, Brooke Segars mixed in 14 kills and 15 digs, while Kim Barry and Gracie Gleason both earned nine kills and Brooke Nicolaos got seven kills.Cassidy Ormond had 22 assists, three aces and seven digs, with Madison Fortin getting 14 assists.
Jamesville-DeWitt continued its late-season surge when it took on Fulton last Tuesday night and controlled matters from the outset, hammering the Red Raiders 25-10 in the first set, getting the second set 25-21 and holding on, 26-24, in the third to complete a sweep.
Madeline Ferris, who surpassed 1,000 career assists the week before, had 23 assists on this night, but also earned nine kills, nine digs, four blocks and two aces.
Linda Shen produced 10 kills and eight digs, with Cassie Murphy adding six kills and four digs. Skylar Hardt earned three kills as, defensively, Alexis LeClair amassed 20 digs, helped by Cara Glazier, who got six digs to go with two kills.
In boys volleyball, F-M claimed a five-set thriller last Wednesday over Oswego, making an impressive follow-up to is sweep of Cicero-North Syracuse the week before.
Having won a close first set 25-23, the Hornets dropped the second set 25-21 to the Buccaneers. Then F-M easily won the third set 25-16 and had numerous chances to win the match in the fourth.
Oswego claimed that fourth set 29-27, but the Hornets recovered and edged the Bucs 15-13 in the final set as Chris Blum accumulated 43 assists by night’s end.
Anderson Fuller led the front line with 15 kills and three aces, while Aaron Costanza had 11 kills. Joe Powless had eight kills and six digs as Adam Tantalo got six kills, with Evan Bybee adding five blocks and three kills.
That same night, J-D ran up against the same Cicero-North Syracuse team F-M had swept the week before, only to take a 25-19, 25-19, 25-16 defeat to the Northstars.
Nick Kemmis still had eight kills for J-D as Nick Mandelis added seven kills and Matt Cieplicki got five kills, plus four digs. Sam Fechtner earned 14 assists and Liam Kaplan finished with eight assists and Brevin Scullion had five digs.
