Lady Cyclones fight to the finish

South Side’s girls’ volleyball team wrote the Cinderella story script, but couldn’t finish with a fairytale ending.

The Lady Cyclones fell 25-21, 20-25, 25-17, 22-25, 25-18 to the defending Nassau Class A champion and No. 1-seeded Wantagh Lady Warriors (18-0) in a nail-biting, five-set battle for the county title Nov. 10 at SUNY-Old Westbury.

No one could have predicted the Lady Cyclones (17-4) would end up in the finals after opening their 2011 campaign with two losses, but they bumped, blocked and spiked their way into the big show by tallying 17 victories in the 18 contests that followed. Heading into the title match, the undefeated Lady Warriors were the team that no one wanted to face.

Wantagh, a perennial contender, was fresh off a stretch of 17 straight victories, including three straight lopsided playoff wins against top-notch opponents. In the end, South Side pushed Wantagh to its limit, but a seven-point, match-ending rally proved to be the difference in the fifth and deciding set.

After South Side and Wantagh split the first four frames, the Lady Cyclones came out swinging in the final stanza. Junior Emma Paris notched a convincing kill to give South Side a 4-3 lead in the fifth frame, and junior outside hitter Allison Glass tallied back-to-back aces just moments later to give the Lady Cyclones an 8-6 edge. Glass added two more aces later in the frame to even the score at 16 apiece, but Wantagh gained the advantage when Glass’ next serve came up just short. 

On the following point, South Side sophomore right-side hitter Kayla Principato swung the momentum back to its side by firing off a thunderous kill to once again even the score at 18, which meant the best-of-five set match would be determined by which team could tack seven points on the board first. Wantagh took a timeout to regroup, and then rattled off seven straight to close out the match. Junior setter Carly Simeone was the game-breaker in the end, as she sent several crisp, powerful serves over the net during the final seven-point rally.

“We fought back and pushed as hard as we could,” South Side coach Cheryl Scalice said. “Anything can happen out there. They had that last run of three or four points, so it came down to that.”

Wantagh coach Katie McKeefrey said she was forced to switch her top outside hitter, senior captain Jenny Illibasi, from the left side to the right due to Principato’s unflappable defense. “She was a huge factor,” McKeefrey said of South Side’s star sophomore. “We could not get past her at all. [Principato] kept blocking her and [Illibasi] just couldn’t jump over her.”

McKeefrey added that South Side was Wantagh’s stiffest competition of the season. “They have always been our toughest [challenge],” McKeefrey said. “They came to win, and so did we. That’s why the match was point-for-point.”