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
How Mattituck fares against Bayport-Blue Point in the upcoming Suffolk County Class B girls volleyball playoffs just might come down to home-court advantage.
Two weeks ago, the Tuckers surprised the defending state champions at home, 3-1, in a League VII match. READ
What may be the longest road trip in Suffolk County high school sports continues.
The Bishop McGann-Mercy girls volleyball team is a team without a home. Because of work being done in Mercy’s gym, the Monarchs haven’t been able to use it at all for practices or matches this season. READ
Not all wins are equal. Some are bigger, and harder to come by, than others. And some wins are just monumental.
The Mattituck High School girls volleyball team experienced the latter, not once, but twice within a 13-day span. READ
Viki Harkin is not the same volleyball player she was last year. The difference could be described in one word: confidence.
Confidence can work wonders. READ
The girl wearing the white University of Tennessee volleyball T-shirt who was smacking the ball with thunderous authority during practice last Wednesday doesn’t play for the Volunteers. At least not yet.
Perhaps one day soon, though. READ
