By TONY BELLISSIMO
The two heavyweights will square off on Thursday afternoon at 3 p.m. at Hofstra. Massapequa has won the previous two championship match-ups and defeated the Marines twice this season, but Long Beach will hope that the third time is a charm.
Long Beach reached the final with a win Tuesday night over Plainview JFK, 25-14, 25-22, 21-25, 26-24.
The two-time runner-up Marines finished the regular-season with an 11-3 record and earned the No. 2 seed for the county playoff tournament that began last Thursday. After a first-round bye, they knocked off No. 10 Mepham on Saturday in three straight, 25-19, 25-17, 25-7, to advance to the Tuesday night semis against third-seeded Plainview.
"We had hardly any errors and we finally closed a team out," Bloom said after senior Rebecca Rodger (eight assists, five kills, five blocks), junior Lindsay Brant (11 kills, 24 digs) and senior Kimberly Braga (22 digs) led the way in the quarterfinal win. "For our seniors it was their last home match and they were psyched. It was a solid effort."
One more big performance landed Long Beach in the championship match for a third straight year, which was far from guaranteed as Plainview and Baldwin, the other two semifinal squads, did not provide easy outs.
"Plainview beat us during the season and Baldwin beat Massapequa and us, and Massapequa beat them," Bloom cautioned prior to Tuesday night's win. "Anything can happen. These are great semifinal match-ups."
The Marines closed the regular season with hard-fought five-game losses to both Plainview and the two-time defending champions.
"We know we can do it if all of our players and clicking at the same time," Bloom said. "Errors more than anything else cost us the Plainview match and even though most of the girls were on against Massapequa it wasn't everyone."
Braga (61 digs) and Brant (eight kills, 54 digs) starred in the 25-15, 17-25, 24-26, 25-22, 19-25 loss at Plainview on Oct. 23. Four days later came a much-anticipated trip to Massapequa.
A share of the conference title was on the line Oct. 27 and both teams played like it. In the end, Massapequa came away with a thrilling 25-20, 16-25, 23-25, 25-18, 17-25 victory that left both teams feeling positive heading into the playoffs.
"Even though we lost there was a lot to feel good about," said Bloom, whose squad has lost seven of the last nine meetings with Massapequa dating back to the 2000 semifinals. "We took them the distance in their gym and that's something we haven't done. We didn't walk out of there with our heads down. We stuck with them."
Rodger, who set a new school record for assists in the win over Plainview, had 20 assists, 13 kills and 10 blocks in the match. Brant had 16 kills and 66 digs, Braga 10 kills, 43 digs and eight blocks and junior Danielle Marchese had 48 digs and five aces.
