CENTRAL NEW YORK – Things are quite different for the area’s three high school fall girls volleyball teams, depending on which Section III playoff bracket they are in.
Jamesville-DeWitt has the most unique challenge. There are just two teams in Class A, the Red Rams and Cortland, who will meet Nov. 3 in the championship match.
But J-D was quite busy in the last week of the regular season, winning four times in six days, capped by Saturday’s battle with Fulton.
A tense first set had several set points, but the Rams took it 26-24, only to have Fulton claim the second 25-23 to get even. Regaining control, J-D won the third 25-19 and, in the fourth set, prevailed 25-21 to close out the match.
Kanami LaClair’s 19 digs and Sophia Zoghby’s 13 digs led the defense next to Cadence Milligan, who had 36 assists. Merris Kessler paced the Rams’ front line with 13 kills, Claire Trevisani adding nine kills and Aaliyah Anderson earning seven kills.
J-D played last Monday against Cortland, and though the second set was tight, the Rams took it and eventually swept the Purple Tigers 25-17, 25-23, 25-20.
Milligan, aside from six digs and three aces, finished with 20 assists, while LaClair earned 10 digs. In front of them, Anderson earned eight kills, with Kessler and Trevisani each getting six kills as Alana Bates tacked on five digs.
Then, against Central Square a night later, J-D dominated the first 25-12, the lost the next two sets 25-20 and 25-23, only to rally 25-22 in the fourth before a tense, back-and-forth final set went 17-15 in the Redhawks’ favor.
Anderson got 19 kills, with Kessler getting 12 kills and Trevisani adding 10 kills. Bates, with 14 digs, helped (23 digs) on defense as Milligan had 36 assists and 10 digs.
On Thursday night against Oswego, J-D split a pair of 25-17 sets before battling past the Buccaneers 25-20 and 25-21 in the next two sets to win in four.
Many of Milligan’s 28 assists went to Anderson, who put away 15 kills and added six blocks. LaClair had 15 digs and Zoghby 10 digs as Trevisani earned seven kills, Kessler adding five kills and three blocks.
By contrast, Fayetteville-Manlius, in trying to win Class AA, must get through the likes of West Genesee and Fulton to get the sectional banner.
It didn’t help the Hornets’ confidence to take a four-set defeat to West Genesee last Tuesday night, a result opposite what had happened when these teams first met Sept. 28.
Here, F-M lost the first two sets 25-21 and 25-18, rallied to win the third 25-20 and was on the brink of taking the match to a final set before the Wildcats jumped up and ended the match 25-23.
Rebekah Beasley finished with 12 kills and Malana Noble had 11 kills. Gretchen Stoppacher got seven kills and Kathryn McNany 14 digs ahead of Larah Schepp’s 12 digs and Beasley’s 10 digs. Ava Zerillo managed 36 assists, plus four kills as Schepp and Sydney McIntyre had three aces apiece.
Needing to rebound on Thursday against Cicero-North Syracuse, F-M did so, splitting the first two sets but then winning the third and then hanging on in the fourth to take it 25-21, 22-25, 25-16, 25-22.
Returning to the lineup, Kalyna Dannenberg got 10 kills, Augmenting Beasley’s 17 kills and Mia Knuth’s nine kills. Noble and Alexis Hamilton had five kills apiece, Noble adding 10 digs as McNany and Beasley had 11 digs apiece and Zerilllo picked up 40 assists.
Bishop Grimes began its last week of the regular season last Tuesday with a 25-18, 25-12, 25-14 loss to Living Word Academy.
Chloe Dailey, with eight kills, and Kayla Duenkel, with seven kills, paced the Cobras’ front line. Ava Christodoulou had 16 assists as Grace Plewak (12 kills) and Alexa Sleight (21 assists) led the Lions.
Turning it around on Thursday night, Grimes handled Syracuse OnTech in straight sets 25-9, 25-8, 25-9 to improve its overall record to 7-11. Duenkel finished with 12 kills as she, along with Christodoulou and Caroline Bukuru, earned four aces apiece and Christodoulou picked up 23 assists.
In the sectional Class D playoffs, Grimes, as the no. 5 seed, would face OnTech again on Monday. A win would put the Cobras against top seed Hamilton in the Nov. 1 semifinal as F-M, the no. 2 seed in Class AA, has a quarterfinal Thursday night against no. 7 seed Corcoran.
