Kennedy Boys Volleyball Fights Off Tornadoes, Moves Into County Semis

The boys volleyball Class B quarterfinal match up between Kennedy and Lawrence on Monday night was nothing short of a wild one.

The second-seeded Cougars (14-1) came back from a 2-1 set deficit against the seventh-seeded Golden Tornadoes (10-5) to advance following a five-set thriller in front of their home crowd.  

Kennedy had not been pushed to a fifth set this season, and had only been forced into a fourth three times prior to Monday. However, the Cougars were able to edge out the win and advance: 28-26, 26-28, 22-25, 25-16 and 25-16.  

"Lawrence played an outstanding match today," Kennedy head coach Dennis Ringel said. "That was as far as we have been pushed this year, but I am really pleased with how my guys responded. I have a lot of guys here who have championship experience and they leaned on that."  

At the end of the first set, Lawrence initially thought they had pulled out the win, but a late tip call out of bounds kept Kennedy alive and eventually allowed them to take the early advantage. The Tornadoes came roaring back, though, and won the next two sets.  

The two teams remained within a point of each other in the fourth set until Kennedy senior Ben Hirschler came up to serve. Up 17-16, the co-captain used a lob serve he has been working on to rally off eighth straight points and help the Cougars even up the team score. That momentum carried over to the fifth and deciding set where the Cougars overcame an early deficit to take the game in convincing fashion for the win.  

"Hirschler has been a starter on this team for three years," Ringel said. "They hadn't been handling the float serves as well as the jump serves. He ran it and it sparked everyone. It was exactly what I expected of him."  

Hirschler led Kennedy with 13 kills and 20 digs. Senior co-captain Brian O'Gorman had 12 kills and seven blocks. Senior Justin Scarpa had an exceptional match as well, adding 11 kills.  

"I thought it was the toughest match that we've played all year," Hirschler said. "There is always that one game during the season that you have trouble with and it humbles you. We realize that we need to always play our best and not underestimate any team."  

Last spring, the Cougars fought off five match points to Jericho in the county semifinals before claiming victory and later a second straight county title.

Senior libero Dylan Simonson was key in the Cougars win Monday, collecting a game-high 30 digs and seven aces.  

"They played very well and we expected that, but we just couldn't turn on the momentum until the fourth or fifth game," Simonson said. "I felt that we executed our game plan more in the end and our servers came up clutch in hitting their serves."  

Lawrence senior Marcos Pinto collected a game-high 18 kills as well as 14 digs and three blocks. Senior Stefan Leger added a game-high 10 blocks and nine kills. Junior Ayal Ciobotaru contributed 12 kills of his own in the effort.

"I thought we came out and played really tough being the underdog," Lawrence head coach George Klein said. "In that, we knew we had to keep our mistakes to a minimum and for the most part we did throughout the match. I got to hand it to Kennedy though because they just fought back tough."  

Kennedy advances to the semifinals to face third-seeded Bethpage (12-1) on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Herricks High School. Bethpage swept Roslyn on Monday. 

"Bethpage has a lot of athleticism," Ringel said. "We will definitely need to play our A game to do well."