Long Beach wins playoff opener

In a match that had “bracket-buster” written all over it, Long Beach’s girls’ volleyball team quieted its critics last Saturday with a straight sets victory (25-21, 25-21, 25-11) at home over Hewlett in the first round of the Nassau Class A Playoffs.

Heading into the postseason, Long Beach and Hewlett were seemingly headed in completely opposite directions. The seventh-seeded Lady Marines sputtered to the finish line of the regular season with four consecutive losses in Conference I, while No. 10 Hewlett was riding a three-match win streak in Conference II. Long Beach wanted to prove the playoffs are all about getting hot at the right time, and ousting the upstart Lady Bulldogs from the postseason certainly helps its cause.

Long Beach outside hitter Patricia Murphy led the way with a match-high nine aces and added a team-high 10 kills. “She’s a senior and one of our captains,” Lady Marines coach Kerri Rehnback said of Murphy. “She really stepped up and held the offense together. I’m very proud of the girls and the way they played.”

Long Beach had a sizable height advantage with the defensive-minded talent Cecelia Nyman (two kills and two blocks) clogging up any open space in front of the net, and senior captain Haley Crane (24 assists) setting up Murphy for her powerful, looping swings that consistently resulted in thunderous kills.

In the opening tilt, Murphy had two aces and the final kill in the Lady Marines‘ 25-21 win. Long Beach predictably focused its defensive efforts on Hewlett’s crafty tandem of powerful middle hitters-senior Lacey Jaffe (seven kills) and sophomore Samantha DiSalvo (four assists), which opened up plenty of scoring opportunities for Murphy. The second set featured three lead changes, as Long Beach overcame an early six-point deficit to even the score at 21 apiece. The Lady Marines then strung together four consecutive points on big plays from Murphy and setter Jackie Zeppa to earn a 25-21 win.

With their season hanging by a thread and facing elimination, the Lady Bulldogs refused to go away quietly when they fell behind by a 14-5 count in the third and deciding set. Junior setter Vanessa Collins notched one of her three aces in the third set to keep Hewlett afloat, and senior opposite hitter Julie Miller (three aces) kept pushing the pace of the offense to cut Long Beach’s advantage to 17-11. But the Lady Marines fired back with a match-ending 7-0 run.

Long Beach, which lost three straight Nassau County championships between 2008-10, moved from Class AA to Class A but still faced stiff competition. The Lady Marines graduated just two seniors from last year’s squad, and if last Saturday’s match against Hewlett is any indication they may finally have a championship-caliber team in place. Time will tell if it will be “fourth time’s the charm.”