Cougars Volleyball Returns to Win Column With Sweep of Jericho

For the first time in a while, the Cougars were entering a game on a bitter note.

After winning their first five matches of the year in dominating fashion, Kennedy lost to Floral Park last Thursday in three straight games. With three full days to reflect on their first loss of the season, the Cougars visited Jericho yesterday with a chip on their shoulder.

They were clearly determined to return to the win column, and they did just that by sweeping the Jayhawks in all three games.

Brendan Mills had 13 kills, Andrew Hirsch had 12 and Brian O'Gorman added six blocks to go with five kills of his own. The Cougars were without Ben Hirschler, who sat out the game due to an injury. This forced coach Allen Ma to reshape his roster before the game.

"I'm really proud of our young middles [Jacob Tabman and Ben Canarich] today," Ma said. "Especially with the way they opened up through adversity. We had an injury and had to move things around a little bit, and we really stepped it up today. We blocked well and that was huge for us.  We started off game one that way, and just followed it through the rest of the way."

After an early kill by Jacob Tabman and strong serving from Jesse Forman, the Cougars jumped to an early 12-6 lead in game one. Hirsch put away a kill of his own to expand the lead to 21-14, and back-to-back kills from Mills solidifed the victory as the Cougars took the game, 25-14.

"It was a big game off of a loss," Hirsch said. "Especially with one of our best players hurt.  Our hitting was good, we played good defense and we served well."

It was Jericho's turn to grab an early lead in game two. After a kill by Jeff Buzen and an ace by Sean Lohan, the Jayhawks led 9-4. Kennedy would battle back, however, as an ace by Ryan Pastuch tied the game at 12. An O'Gorman kill pushed Kennedy's lead to 21-14, and they proceeded to win the game 25-21 off a kill by Tabman.

"Our blocking was great today," Pastuch said. "Jacob Tabman and Brian O'Gorman had a bunch of blocks and we've worked hard on our serves the past couple days so our serving improved a lot."

Game three would be another close one.  An ace by Dylan Simson knotted the game early at 6-6, and the two teams would continue to go back and forth. Jericho's David Needleman put away a kill to tie the game back up at 16, but a kill from Jon Meshnick gave the Cougars a 22-20 lead. Jericho kept it close, but Kennedy went on to win the game 25-22 after back-to-back blocks by O'Gorman.

"We made too many silly mistakes," Jericho coach Peter Okulski said. "Kennedy made some mistakes too but we didn't take advantage of them. They blocked really well and we just didn't cover our hitters very well today."

The victory put the Cougars back on the winning track as they showed no ill-effects from their first loss of the season.

"It was a big win off of a loss," Pastuch said.  "And we need to take it into the next game."

The Cougars return to the court tomorrow when they take on Roslyn at home at 4:45 p.m.