Lady Baymen win first ever county title

Nov 16, 09 2:33 PM   1 member recommended this article

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A good old-fashioned case of nerves may have gotten the better of the Hampton Bays girls volleyball team in the first game of the Suffolk County Class C championship match on Wednesday night at St. Joseph’s College, but once the Lady Baymen shook that off, it was smooth sailing in a 3-1 win over Mattituck.

The county title was the first ever for the program since the team began playing in the fall season. Prior to the 2005 season, the Lady Baymen played in the spring. Girls volleyball teams that played in the spring were not eligible for the state tournament and all the schools, large and small, played for one county championship during that time. In 2005, all the teams were required to compete during the fall season, where the playoffs are split into brackets according to class, which is determined by school enrollment size.

Hampton Bays made an uncharacteristic amount of errors and lost the first set 25-19, but returned to its usual form in the second set with a dominant 25-13 win. The Lady Baymen continued to overpower Mattituck for the remainder of the match, winning the third set 25-9 and sealing the win with a 25-15 victory in the final set.

The Lady Baymen saw their season come to an end with a 3-0 loss to Nassau champion East Rockaway in the Long Island Class C Championship at St. Joe’s on Saturday.

After the win over Mattituck, senior captain Rachel Tufano admitted that the loud and raucous crowd and the jitters that came from being on the brink of winning the program’s first-ever county title affected her team in the first set. She said her coach, Andy Fotopoulos, told the team after the first set that they just needed to settle down and play their game.

“It was all nerves,” she said after the match. “He told us to just let everything go and play as a team.”

Senior April Bennett said that taking that advice was the key to turning the match around.

“We started playing more as a team and reducing errors,” she said.

Better serving was a big part of the momentum swing in Hampton Bays’ favor. Libero Taylor Diffley, the team’s best server, uncharacteristically hit a short serve into the net in the first set, but in the second set, she went on serve in the middle of the match to give her team a big lead and then served out the last four points of the set. In the third set, the Lady Baymen started off with an 8-1 lead and never looked back.

Bennett had a monster game, finishing with 14 kills and 15 digs, which pleased Fotopoulos. The coach said that while he expects Bennett to get her points on offense, he was most pleased with the fact that she defended her position well, something he said he’s been working on with her. Bennett was one kill short of tying the school record for kills in a single season. The record of 182 kills was set by Wendy Soni in 2000.

Fotopoulos said Bennett’s hitting prowess has been a big part of his team’s success this year.

“It’s going to be something we’ll sorely miss next season,” he said. “We’re going to give her the ball at the net, and it’s stop us if you can.”

Tufano finished with nine kills while Sarah Young had seven kills and three blocks. Setters Liz Raimo and Lexi Giannone each had 12 assists while Diffley had 20 digs and six aces.

Winning the county title was the culmination of a three-year plan for the current seniors—Tufano, Bennett, Young and Morgan Orego. It meant a lot to Tufano and Bennett, in particular, who are three-year starters.

“We knew we’d take our lumps during their sophomore year and we worked toward this,” Fotopoulos said. “We finally put it together.”

“It feels amazing,” Tufano said.

“It’s unreal,” Bennett followed.