7 Photos
Libero Carter Papagni digs a serve.
Daniel Haber serves for Westhampton Beach. DREW BUDD
Conor Farnan sets the ball for Declan Kerns. DREW BUDD
Daniel Haber and the Hurricanes are fired up after winning a tight first set, 28-26, over host Bay Shore. Westhampton Beach wound up taking the match, 3-2, on Thursday. DREW BUDD
Declan Kerns gets set to serve for Westhampton Beach. DREW BUDD
Westhampton Beach head coach Josh Tuttle is fired up after his team scores a big point.
Hurricanes Joe Green, left, and Declan Kerns attempt to block a Bay Shore player. DREW BUDD
Save for a close 3-2 victory over Smithtown West on March 19, and its only loss of the season at Sachem North, the Westhampton Beach boys volleyball team has been relatively unmatched this season, defeating most of its opponents in three straight sets.
On Thursday, April 1, however, the Hurricanes finally found themselves in front of a perennially strong program in host Bay Shore, where they could really get a sense of how far they’ve come since that loss to Sachem North. The outcome? Well, the ’Canes look ready for another county-title run.
Westhampton Beach defeated Bay Shore, 3-2, for its ninth consecutive win, firmly planting itself as the top team in Division II, and second best team overall in Suffolk County, improving to 10-1 on the season, trailing only undefeated Lindenhurst in the power-point based standings. After trading 28-26 set scores the first two games, the Marauders took the third set, 25-16. The ’Canes responded with a 25-16 victory of their own in the fourth set, then managed to take the match with a 15-11 victory in the fifth set.
Josh Tuttle, in his first year as head coach of the Westhampton Beach varsity team, was extremely pleased with how his players competed against a strong Bay Shore team.
“We’ve just progressed tremendously since that second match of the year. It was a big win for us,” he said. “The boys played hard, the boys played really well, the boys wanted it, and now we get a nice break before we get to the second half of the season and make our final postseason push.”
The ’Canes came out a little flat in the third set after two grueling sets to start the match. But they came out with a lot more intensity in the fourth and cruised to a match-tying victory behind multiple shared blocks by Joe Green and Declan Kerns, and kills from offensive juggernaut Daniel Haber.
Back-to-back kills by Haber gave Westhampton Beach a 14-11 lead in the fifth and deciding set, then an unforced error by Bay Shore clinched it.
Haber finished with 23 kills and five blocks. Hank Scherer had nine kills and Kerns finished with six kills and four blocks. Conor Farnan had 37 assists, Colbie Mason finished with a team-high seven blocks, Green finished with three blocks and Carter Papagni had 10 digs.
“We played pretty well at the start, but we didn’t have our full energy,” Papagni said, after the win. “We were kind of playing, not sloppy, but a little slow. And then that fourth set we picked it up and carried it through to the fifth.
“In that third set, we lost pretty big, so then that fourth set we came out kind of angry,” he added. “Wanted to win, and we were hungry, and I think it showed.”
The players were unsure what to expect from Bay Shore, which had swept all four of its opponents in three sets coming into last week’s match, but was coming off a two-week quarantine due to COVID-19.
“We just came into this game with the right mindset — we had to keep the energy high — and keeping the energy high just came through and we got the win,” Kerns said.
“This game was just insane,” he added. “That final point felt like the [Long Island Championship] all over again.”
Westhampton Beach, which placed third in the state in 2019 after winning Suffolk and Long Island titles, continued to face some larger schools when the season resumed this past Tuesday with Smithtown East. But the players are looking forward to a regular-season finale against cross-town rival Eastport-South Manor, which bounces between being a Division I and II school from year to year. This season, the Sharks are a Division II team, and a matchup for a county title between the two schools isn’t out of the question.
Those matches will most likely come down to a few points, as last week’s match in Bay Shore did. But that match proved the ’Canes are up to the challenge this season.
“That’s our second big fifth-set win of the season, and the boys definitely thrive under that pressure,” Tuttle said about his team. “They’re not afraid of the score, they’re not afraid of losing a point. They really enjoy playing in those high intensity moments.
“I’m really proud of them, and that was a full-team win,” he added. “All six guys out there — yes, we had our big hitters clicking — but everyone contributed, whether it was blocking, serving, passing, setting. Everyone contributed today.”
