All that happened to the Jamesville-DeWitt boys volleyball team in the 2019 season has changed both the expectations of the program and what it knows it can accomplish.
Once content with grabbing local honors, the Red Rams were not stopped until they had reached Saturday’s championship match of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Division II tournament at Albany’s Capital Center.
Only there did things end, J-D overwhelmed by Section VI champion Grand Island, but it could not erase all the things the Rams accomplished just to reach that plateau.
After a four-set victory over Oswego in the Nov. 9 Section III final, J-D met up with Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake (Section II) in an epochal regional final at Fayetteville-Manlius a week later.
Having lost the first set 25-14 to the Spartans, the Rams pulled out a 28-26 second set, absorbed a 25-17 loss in the third set and rallied again, claiming the fourth set 25-17 and the race-to-15 final set 25-19.
Plenty of players contributed to that effort. Up front, Matt Cieplicki put away 30 kills, adding two aces and seven digs, while Nick Kemmis earned 14 kills and three blocks. Kenny Hildreth notched four kills to go with his 10 digs.
Brevin Scullion did it all on the back line, amassing 46 assists and earning 15 digs, while Matt Kemmis managed four assists and nine digs. Jack Moore and Josh Duby had two kills apiece as Nolen Brann earned three digs.
Now, J-D and two other sides – Grand Island, from Western New York, and Westhampton Beach, from Long Island, made their way to Albany for the state championships. They would play four sets against each other in a round-robin format in the morning before a best-of-five set final in the afternoon.
Going up against Westhampton Beach first, the Rams found itself in a long, back-and-forth battle with the Hurricanes. Both sides squandered multiple set points before, at 30-30, J-D gained back the serve and got the clinching point to win 32-30.
With all of the momentum, J-D went on to win the second set 25-17 and, since Grand Island had already swept Westhampton Beach, the state final between the Rams and Vikings was set.
Still, those two teams had to finish the round-robin portion. Both sides rested their key players and used reserves, and it turned out that J-D’s reserves were better as it won each of the two sets by margins of 25-18 and 25-17.
A few hours later, the state final started, and everything turned around. Grand Island scored the first four points and steadily built its margin throughout the opening set, ultimately taking it by a 25-12 margin.
The Vikings also scored the first six points of the second set, bolting out 15-3. Fighting back a bit, J-D did make up some of the margin, but not enough as it lost 25-16.
Not letting up, Grand Island leaned on strong serves and a defense that kept all kinds of points alive to frustrate the Rams, the Vikings ultimately taking the state championship when it won the third set 25-11.
Even with that result, it was still J-D’s first-ever state finals appearance, which in 2020 it will attempt to duplicate despite seeing standouts like Cieplicki, Scullion, Duby, Matt Kemmis and Nick Kemmis graduate.
