ONONDAGA COUNTY – Ahead of their first head-to-head match of the season next Tuesday night, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse girls volleyball teams both had to absorb defeats in Wednesday’s league action.
The Warriors did so facing Baldwinsville for the first time since last November’s Section III Class AAA final, where again the Bees got the best of it, thwarting a possible late Liverpool rally to prevail in four sets.
All through the first set B’ville served well, keeping Liverpool off balance and rolling to a 25-15 win. And though the second set was a lot closer, the Warriors could only cut the margin in half as the Bees took it 25-20.
On the brink of a sweep, though, B’ville wasn’t quite able to end the match, Liverpool withstanding match points and then taking the set 28-26 to drag it to the fourth, where again it was close.
Still, the Bees were able to end the match 25-21, this despite 16 kills from Lola Sageer and 11 kills from Madison Ames leading a front line where Katie Lebiedzinski had six kills. Josie Shaw earned 32 assists as Sageer and Ames both recorded 14 digs and Lily Correll 12 digs. Elise Borrell added nine digs and Shaw eight digs.
For B’ville, Addy Garcia put up 23 digs and four aces next to Madison MacKaig, who had 18 assists and eight digs. Aubrie Morris had seven assists and five digs as, up front, Amelia Hahn got 13 kills and Mallory Offredi nine kills, Natalie Dauphinais setting a career mark by getting seven blocks.
Then there was C-NS’s match against Fayetteville-Manlius, where the Northstars’ comeback attempt went further than Liverpool’s did with B’ville, but still led to a five-set defeat.
What was similar was the rough start, a 25-14 opening set where the Hornets rolled and carried it over to a far closer second set that still saw C-NS lose it 25-22.
Where it started to differ was that the Northstars had no trouble extending the match 25-11 in the third and, even with a bigger F-M challenge in the fourth set, claimed it 25-20 to send it to the final-set race to 15.
Regrouping just in time, the Hornets claimed that fifth set 15-11 carried by the duo of Laila Duggal, who amassed 47 assists, and Kalyna Dannenberg, who took most of Duggal’s passes and turned them into 32 kills.
Grace Murray got close to Dannenberg’s numbers with her 24 kills with help from Grace Turrell’s nine kills. Kendall Rumble, with 21 assists, and Payton LaMott with 10 assists split back-line work as Rumble and Piper Adams had five kills apiece. Allison Navarra recorded 19 digs and Hannah George had three aces to equal Rumble and Adams.
