Shen ends Burnt Hills streak at 390

CLIFTON PARK >> For the past 26 years and 390 Suburban Council league contests, the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake girls volleyball team stood head and shoulders above the rest in the Capital Region.

Shenendehowa had been improving the past two years, but could never touch the Spartans’ model of consistency.

On Wednesday night, in front of a sold out crowd of about 1,600 fans who lifted the rafters off the Shenendehowa High School East Gymnasium, the Plainsmen finally broke through.

Shenendehowa captured the Suburban Council league title Thursday night with a 25-20, 25-9, 25-17 victory. It was only the second time that the Plainsmen have defeated Burnt Hills since 1990 in that same gymnasium.

“We got beat by a better team tonight, those kids they played well, we were not in system hardly at all,” Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake coach Gary Bynon said. “I told some people at the end of this night we either have to get them out of service with our serves, get them out of system, but (Charlotte) Macken was all over the place doing an outstanding job passing the ball and we needed to pass the ball well which has been something for us all year, we couldn’t run anything. We’ve tried to battle, we’ve tried to work through that, it’s just not there.”

The Plainsmen (14-0 Suburban Council, 17-2 overall) jumped out to an early lead in front of the High School East gymnasium with is Shenendehowa fans sporting white for the night’s “white out” theme and the Spartans (13-1 league, 21-4 overall) wearing black.

Shenendehowa was energized by the largest-known crowd to watch a girls volleyball match in Clifton Park and jumped out to a 12-3 first set lead. The hosts held off the Spartans for a 25-20 opening win.

The Plainsmen had another seven-point streak in the second set and never looked back, gaining momentum with a dominant 25-9 second set win.

The third set turned into the expected back-and-forth point chess match before Charlotte Macken delivered the final four points for the league champion-

ship.

“We’ve been training on keeping a big lead and trying to do that for so many years,” Macken said. “It’s been such a big part of the game that we keep focusing on it during practice, during other games and we just did it.”

In a comparison of styles, Shenendehowa Coach Lori Kessler doesn’t direct the striker’s serving spot and it paid off Wednesday night.

“I like to train my servers mentally to make the good choices,” Lori Kessler said. “A lot of times they get into a momentum and a flow and I like to give them that choice in rhythm and I feel like they are all smart enough players to know. They see the floor, they see the struggle in passers and it gives them that freedom to stay in their rhythm.”

The Plainsmen were effective with its serves and the squad was also able to handle the service entries from their opponents.

“We knew that Burnt Hills was going to be a tough serving team, we knew that if we could pass the ball off their serve that our offense would do the rest,” Kessler said. “Defensively, they did the same thing, they got digs up and even when we were out of system we were trying really hard to keep things as aggressive as possible against them.”

The Plainsmen have been one of the biggest threats to the Spartans holding onto the Suburban Council titles and league unbeaten streak, going four sets two years ago and then coming up short in a five-set nail biter last year.

“We have been working, we’ve been working year after year, each year it’s gotten closer and closer and this year coming in, let’s go back to last year,” Kessler said. “The moment we lost that set five we waited for this year. We talked about in the off season, we talk about in the summer, preseason, it’s always a goal that we’re striving for and we feel very accomplished as a program to have done that.”

The loss of another league title was easier than the realization that piece of history had come to an end.”

For Bynon, the memory to cherish is being a part of one of the longest winning streaks in sports history was the journey over the past 26 years, not one night of miscues.

“Its high school kids that are carrying the weight of 26 years on their shoulders and I just told them, that they will sit back and say I was once on a team that won 390 volleyball matches in a row,” Bynon said. “That is with people injured, that are with people sick, that is with somebody having a bad day, that is away, and that is with every day people playing the best game of their year against you and that is as one of the smallest schools in this league.

“That’s what I hope and take the pride that they will remember and they are awesome people, I’m so proud that they allow me to be a part of their group because they are awesome people.

Shen won tonight convincingly, but I win too because I get to be with them every day in practice.”