Westhampton Beach Boys Volleyball Team’s Season Comes to a Close in County Semifinal Loss at Rival ESM

The talk around Suffolk County was that in Division II boys volleyball, this year’s county title was up for grabs more so than in the past after defending state champion Eastport-South Manor graduated so much talent at the conclusion of its run last season. Some went as far to call the Sharks a “one-trick pony.”

Ayden DesLauriers probably prefers to be referred to as ESM’s steed, instead.

While he certainly grabs a lot of the attention on the court for the Sharks, DesLauriers lived up to the hype on Saturday afternoon, as he led ESM to a 3-0 victory over crosstown rival Westhampton Beach at home to advance to yet another Suffolk County Division II Championship, which was played Wednesday at Newfield High School against No. 2 Hauppauge, which defeated No. 3 East Hampton in the other county semifinal which was also Saturday.

DesLauriers finished with 19 kills, 20 digs, a block and two aces. Westhampton Beach head coach Josh Tuttle, an ESM graduate who played for the Sharks program, was well aware of what DesLauriers could do on the court, but stopping him was easier said than done.

“They definitely run their offense through Ayden DesLauriers, and we knew that and we did our best to try and get stops against him,” he said. “And we did get some stops, but he’s one of the top players in the county and he was still able to do enough.”

After losing the first set, 25-17, the Hurricanes — who defeated Bayport-Blue Point, 3-1, in an outbracket match on October 26 to reach the semifinal — found themselves down at one point, 15-8, only to come back and tie the set. But the Sharks pulled out the victory, 27-25, and although the third set was also close, ESM won that, 25-21, to clinch the match.

Of course, ESM has a solid cast surrounding DesLauriers, albeit young. The Sharks posses a pair of setters in Ralph Betner (20 assists) and Henry Ryan (19 assists), who totaled nearly 40 assists between the two of them on Saturday. Destin Vorhees finished with nine kills and 12 digs and Peter Grogan chipped in with nine kills.

“They have a young team around Ayden, so everyone else on their team helps support him,” Tuttle said. “Some of their other guys were able to step up and get some kills. It definitely wasn’t just Ayden, they definitely get some contributions as well, but he does make up the majority of that offense.”

“Our game plan going into it was focus on number seven,” Westhampton Beach senior Declan Kerns said of DesLauriers. “We did our research and figured they set him more than 50 percent of the time, so we were just trying to shut him down. But they’re a scrappy team. They come in with a really good mindset and have a great coach. We were definitely putting the ball back in play and I think we got into his head in that second set and threw him off a bit. We did a pretty good job in that regard.”

Westhampton Beach had not played ESM during the regular season. In fact, of the five teams that qualified for the Division II playoffs — ESM, Hauppauge, East Hampton, Westhampton Beach and Bayport-Blue Point — a number of them hadn’t played one another. Tuttle said it was just an odd coincidence how it worked out this season, but said it would have been nice playing a team like ESM or Hauppauge, just to get a sense of what they bring to the table and adjust any sort of gameplans they may have had built from seeing them at least once.

“We both have different-looking squads than in years past, so it really was a fresh start for both of us,” Tuttle said of the rivalry between his team and ESM. “It was close enough to be a good game, not close enough to ever feel like we were ever in control of the game. It always felt like we were playing catch up to them, and we were never able to sustain any sort of runs, especially deeper in the sets.”

Despite the loss, Kerns, who finished with team highs in both kills (16) and digs (13) on Saturday, felt like it was one of the better matches his team played throughout the season. He was not one bit upset with how the rest of his teammates competed. Will Jankowski finished with 10 kills and 12 digs, Alec Kelly also had 12 digs, and Casey Sidor had 37 assists and 10 digs.

Kerns, the four-year varsity player, was the final piece remaining from the Hurricanes’ historic run in 2019, when they won their first-ever county and Long Island championships and placed third in the state. He is one of just three players graduating this June, the only starter, along with Daniel Gosnell and Gavin Vander Schaaf.

“Being a part of the team in 2019 as a freshman was such an amazing experience, being on the team with my brother, who was a senior,” he said. “Since then, I’ve watched the program grow as we’ve set goals and tried our hardest to get better every year. Losing key players like [Ryan] Barnett was hard, but we’ve continued to grow as a program from that and we’ve all just tried our best from there and made it really far every season since.”

Kerns said he hasn’t made a final decision on college yet, but he’s in talks with St. Joseph’s University head coach Bill Kropp, who happens to be the head coach at ESM as well, about joining his program there.

Tuttle said his connection to Kerns happened well before becoming the head coach of the program after the 2019 season and he’s certainly going to miss him.

“Declan is the one player I’ve coached in middle school, at the JV level and at varsity, so I’ve known him for quite a few years, seen him grow into one of the top players in the county through nothing but hard work and raw talent,” he said. “It’s a bummer his season had to end a little early, but he still has a Long Island Championship and he got to be a part of great run while he was on varsity. We’ll certainly miss him next year as he was a huge contributor, but we bring everyone else back.”

“Overall, the last three years, we’ve made it to a county final, and that’s always the goal, to make it to where we’ve been, but we had a young team this year so we knew we had a little bit of an extra challenge,” Tuttle added. “We certainly had a few extra bumps along the way, but we still put ourselves in a good position, we had a good home playoff win and got to compete in a county semifinal match. We may have come up short, but it’s certainly not a season to be disappointed about.”