Kennedy Girls Volleyball Roars Into County Finals

The Kennedy girls volleyball squad cruised back into the county finals Monday night, defeating third-ranked Garden City and earning one more shot at archrival Wantagh.

Led by a potent net attack and aggressive court work, the second-seeded Lady Cougars turned back a second game surge by the Lady Trojans on the neutral Long Beach court, and built on the momentum of that win to sweep the Garden City girls in three.

"We did a great job playing against a top program today," Cougars coach Allen Ma said after the game. "We fought hard today, and in fact we've worked hard throughout the season. Nobody in Nassau County has worked harder this year."

"That's a tough bunch of girls, they've worked hard" agreed Garden City coach Phil Opinante. "They've done a great job this year."

Leading the way for the Cougars was Stephanie Bauman, with 10 kills, followed by Heahter Hulkower, who notched nine kills. Sam Sagendorph and Jamie Demmett were big in the assist area all day, with 12 assists apiece, and the digs by many team members, in particular Keri Saltzer and Taylor Krug, were critical to Kennedy's success.

Kennedy, which beat Garden City in four games during the regular season, had somewhat of an easier go of it in the first game, winning by a lopsided score. But in game two, Garden City played the Cougars to a standstill, and at 20-20, there was reason to wonder if the match was going to get a little tighter than at first it might have appeared.

But that's when Kennedy's aggressiveness came into play. With a vengeance. A Sagendorph kill on defense made it 21-20, and then Demmett stepped up to the line and notched two service winners in a row.

A well placed dink by Lady Trojan Megan Bader made it 23-21, but aggressive net action from the Cougars resulted in an unforced error for a Kennedy point, setting up the winning double block by Bauman and Jesse Eisenmann and the 25-21 second game win.

"That was the key to the game," Ma said. "By being aggressive at that point, it helped give us momentum going into game three."

Sure enough, Kennedy raced out to the lead on the strength of four Bauman kills and a couple of service aces from Krug, and then Hulkower and Demmett dominated the net as Bauman served up a couple of winning serves to make it 11-2.

Garden City, with its back to the wall, made it interesting at that point, righting their way back to a 21-16 score, but Stalzer shut the door on the Trojans after that with three service aces in a row. It remained for Sagendorph to get the final kill of the afternoon for the 25-18 win and three game sweep.

"Garden City is a good team, they played tough, particularly in the second game," said Ma afterwards. "I told our team they did a great job today, they worked hard like they've worked hard all season. I'm hoping they will celebrate the win today and get ready to play in the finals tomorrow."

In the Class A finals Wednesday, the Cougars meet the top-seeded Wantagh Lady Warriors in a match-up that seemed destined all season long.  The Cougars beat Wantagh in the county finals in 2008 and the Warriors avenged that defeat last year, taking down Kennedy 3-1 in the finals.  

This year, Wantagh won both regular season contests between the squads, but both matches went the full five sets: one at Kennedy on Oct. 5 and another at Wantagh on Oct. 28.

The county title game begins at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at C.W. Post.