A new and exciting reality greeted the Chittenango girls volleyball team as it entered the Section III winter playoffs.
Three years of dominating the Class B ranks and claiming sectional championships changed when, for 2020, the Bears were moved up to Class A.
What it meant was that Chittenango would face a far tougher field than in years past, one that included recent sectional champions like Carthage and Whitesboro, plus the Cortland side that gave the Bears its lone defeat of the season in December.
Assigned the no. 2 seed, Chittenango will battle no. 6 seed Watertown in Monday’s sectional quarterfinal after snow postponed the original match last Thursday.
If the Bears win, it will have yet another clash with Cortland in the semifinals after the Purple Tigers ousted Whitesboro in four sets in its quarterfinal match. The final is next Saturday at Jamesville-DeWitt at 3 p.m.
Meanwhile, the regular season continued for the Chittenango boys volleyball team as it survived a five-set classic with Sauquoit Valley last Monday night to avenge a Jan. 9 defeat to the Indians.
Beaten 25-15 in the opening set, the Bears nearly fell further behind, but pulled out a long second set 28-26 and carried that momentum over to a 25-20 win in the third.
Two points from victory, Chittenango was denied when Sauquoit claimed the fourth set 29-27, but somehow the Bears recovered and, in a final-set race to 15, put away the Indians 15-11.
Caleb Barnard, with 35 digs, led a Chittenango defense where Seth Kimball got 29 digs, Brandon Turner 17 digs, Tom McIntosh 13 digs and Mikel Pascual 11 digs.
Austin Strickler finished with 11 kills and four blocks, while Alex Reymond got nine kills. Turner had eight kills and Kimball got six kills. Josh Ward (21 kills) and Alex Philpotts (30 assists) led Sauquoit’s efforts.
This followed a 25-14, 25-15, 25-8 sweep of Little Falls on Feb. 1 where Tom McIntosh set the tone with six aces, Kyle Schnauffer and Aiden Adams each getting four assits.
Adams also had seven assists and four digs as Turner got 22 assist, three kills and four blocks. Alek Reymond paced the front line with seven kills, just ahead of Seth Kimball and Edward Heller, who had five kills apiece.
After the Sauquoit epic, Chittenango would challenge 10-1 Vernon-Verona-Sherrill on Wednesday night. The Red Devils prevailed, taking the first two sets 25-18 and 25-19 and the fourth in another 25-19 decision after the Bears won the third 25-21.
Kimball still had 14 kills and 29 digs, with Strickler getting nine kills and five blocks. Reymond had seven kills and three blocks, Turner managing 27 assists and 10 digs as McIntosh had 16 digs and Pascual 10 digs. Adams got six digs.
On VVS’s side, there was Colten Terrier getting a triple-double of 20 assists, 10 kills and 11 digs. Ryan Loucy earned 43 digs next to Evan Kirkpatrick (22 assists) on the back line as Gavin Miller had 16 kills and Evan Kirkpatrick 11 kills.
