Before going into Dig Pink mode, the Mattituck High School girls volleyball team dug something else: its first league championship in 14 years.
With a three-set win at Shelter Island Friday, Mattituck assured itself of a share of the Suffolk County League VIII title. READ
The spectacular is great for highlight reels and “SportsCenter,” but Frank Massa is more than content with making the routine plays, well, routine.
What the Mattituck High School girls volleyball coach wants to see is consistency on passes being made that should be made and sets being made that should be made. READ
Winning high school girls volleyball matches is a learned behavior, something Greenport/Southold has been working at in recent years.
That work finally came to fruition on Sept. 7 when Greenport snapped a losing string of at least 23 matches, covering four years and two winless seasons, with a four-set win over Babylon. None of the Porters had ever experienced a win before in a varsity uniform. READ
After Mattituck’s Viki Harkin finally put away a ball for the first point of the match — a long, hard-earned point — Westhampton Beach girls volleyball coach Lenny Zaloga called over to his counterpart, Frank Massa. “Frank,” he said, “this is going to be a long one.” READ
The Mattituck High School girls volleyball team is back in Class C.
The Tuckers must be A-OK with that, no?
“Can I tell you at the end of the year?” coach Frank Massa answered. “No, I’m generally OK with it.” READ
Volleyball may be the ultimate team game.
In no other sport, I think, are the players tied together, almost as if by a rope. The six players on the court are inextricably linked, the success of one player depending on the ability of the player next to her, and so on. READ
Like a superheroine, when the girl they call the “Flying Squirrel” made her return to the volleyball court, it was a triumphant one. READ
Madison Osler remembers watching her Mattituck High School girls volleyball team during the preseason and wondering what the future would bring. She recalled saying to herself: “This is a mess. I don’t know how this is going to go.”
In retrospect, things went pretty well for the Tuckers. That “mess” was soon cleaned up. Mattituck split regular-season series with powers Elwood/John Glenn and Bayport-Blue Point, took second place in League VII and reached the first Suffolk County Class B final in its history. READ
Immediately after one drama ended, another began.
To see players crying on Bayport-Blue Point’s side of the volleyball net could be expected. The Phantoms, after all, had just lost. But there were also tears on Mattituck’s side, where the Tuckers had congregated in a victory pile. They were tears of joy, however. READ
The Mattituck High School girls volleyball team knows there’s no place like home. So the Tuckers kept telling themselves that, clicked their heels together and their wish appears to have come true.
By wrapping up its regular season Monday night with a 25-15, 25-16, 25-11 road win over Hampton Bays, Mattituck secured second place in Suffolk County League VII. But, more importantly, the Tuckers also earned what coach Frank Massa believes will be a home Suffolk Class B playoff match against Bayport-Blue Point on Nov. 2. READ
