Colts Volleyball Ousted By Vikings

The Colts volleyball team was given yet another tough assignment yesterday having to take on last year's Conference II runner-ups, Port Washington.

Despite losing the first game, in which the Vikings more than doubled Calhoun's point total, the Colts fought back and managed to challenge Port Washington in the next two games, and even had a game point in the last one.  However, the Colts (1-7) would ultimately drop the game and lose the match, three games to zero.

Adam Epstein had 16 kills and Dan Bernstein added 12 of his own for Port Washington during the contest at Calhoun High School.

Calhoun coach Heather Glick remained optimistic about her team after the loss.

"Port Washington is definitely one of the toughest teams we're going to see for the rest of the season," she said. "I think with the improvements that we've made we can eventually pick off somebody. But I still expect big things, and we work hard everyday and I feel like we deserve to do well."

The Vikings (7-2) came out firing in game one, jumping to an early 9-2 lead after a kill from Sung Kim and an ace by Alex Monaco.  Jacob Greenberg served an ace to put Calhoun within seven at 14-7, but a kill from Andrew Vasquez put Port Washington up big at 23-9. The Colts got a late kill from Tom Murnane to put them in double digits, but the Vikings would win the game 25-11 after a game-ending kill by Epstein.

"We were good all around today," Epstein said. "We didn't have many serving errors and we had pretty good blocking at the net. Our defense did a good job keeping balls in play that we needed to win."

An ace from Yordan Marambio gave the Vikings a 7-3 lead to start game two, but Calhoun didn't let it get away this time.  Kills from Greenberg and Alex Morra cut Port Washington's lead to 15-14.  However, The Vikings got a kill from Jong-Ho Byun to expand their lead, and they won the game 25-19 off a kill from Dean Takahashi.

"We played better than we played all season," Greenberg said. "But they were better than us and we just have to keep working and keep pushing.  Our defense was pretty good and we passed better than we normally do. But they were just a better team."

Game three was the closest of the contest as the score remained nearly tied throughout. A kill from Bernstein put Port Washington up 16-15, but Corey Sweeney put away a kill of his own to tie it back up. An Epstein kill put the two teams at 22 apiece, and then a block by Murnane gave the Colts a 24-22 lead.  The Vikings would come back to tie it before Calhoun had another match point opportunity at 25-24. However, the Vikings reeled off the next three points and won the game 27-25 off another kill by Bernstein.

"We played pretty well, I thought we underestimated Calhoun a little," Bernstein said.  "But I thought we actually looked pretty good this game.  We put in some of our subs and showed a lot of our depth, which I think is important."

Next up, the Colts travel to Syosset Friday for a 4:45 p.m. match.