Saratoga Catholic moving on
Saints earn sweep in Section II Class C playoff opener
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » The No. 3 seeded Saratoga Catholic girls volleyball team swept Taconic Hills in the first round of the Section II Class C playoffs 3-0 Wednesday.
Saratoga Catholic coach Maria Izzo said the talent of the team led them to the win.
“The girls play very well together,” Izzo said. “They have played very well all season. They are basically the same team as last year, we only had one senior who graduated, so we had a core coming back and they enjoy playing volleyball. It is evident they are talented and athletic. They said ‘let’s go out strong and don’t let up’ and they did. They went out strong, didn’t let up and that was their goal tonight.”
Saratoga Catholic moves on to the next round on Friday against the winner of the No. 11 seed Albany Academy and No. 6 seeded Greenville.
Fornabia had 15 service points, six aces, 14 kills and eight digs to lead the Saints.
“We started really strong,” Fornabia said. “We went in with the mentality that we can’t take anything for granted, so we played our hardest. We didn’t know how they were playing, so we just went in strong.”
The Saints took control in the first set, getting out to the early 11-1 lead with two aces from Ani Crocker, before the Titans scored their second point of the set. The Saints then went on a 9-0 run before the Titans managed to score again and took the set 25-4 with two more aces apiece from Grace O’Reilly and Fornabia.
The second set saw Taconic Hills put up a fight after falling behind
8-3 early. They managed to fight back to make it 14-11 in favor of Saratoga Catholic, but failed to keep it going. The Saints scored seven unanswered points after that and Taconic Hills managed only three more points. Saratoga Catholic took the second set 25-14 in Taconic Hills’ best showing of the match.
“You are going to have errors,” Izzo said. “You talk it out, work it out, fix what went wrong and you move on. I think (Taconic Hills) had a strong server and that helped them. We got under the ball, played our game, stayed in our system and continued to play strong.
The Saints took a big advantage in the final set, allowing Taconic Hills to get only six points throughout and finish with a 25-6 win to complete the sweep.
Taconic Hills got strong performance from Mackenzie Sparacino, who had two aces, three service points, one kill and two digs and Morgan Monty, who got one service points and two digs.
Saratoga Catholic had a strong team performance with multiple players contributing to the win along with Fornabia.
Ani Crocker had 16 service points, six aces, two kills and four digs, Elise Browell had 16 service points, five aces and 23 assists, Kennedy Murphy had seven kills and four digs and O’Reilly had six points, three aces and two kills.
Fornabia said that getting the first win of the playoffs out of the way was big for her team.
“It is good because you never know what you are going to get the first game,” Fornabia said. “It is kind of just you get what you get. Now we know the outlook and we can narrow down the other schools since they are playing sectionals this week too. It is good to get it out of the way because it is a little nerve wracking. (After getting the first), now you can go with the flow and keep going.”
Izzo said the team needs to stay consistent if they want to keep on winning.
“If we can keep our serves consistent and make sure we move our feet to the ball consistently,” Izzo said. “We can’t let one bad play define the set and the game. We need to move on from it.”