BH-BL girls swept in Final Four
GLENS FALLS, N.Y. » The Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake were in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class A girls volleyball Final Four, that wasn’t a surprise – it was that the Spartans were swept out of the first day of competition by Walter Panas, Williamsville East and then King’s Park.
“We didn’t pass great at big times, we didn’t run stuff at big times and it’s at big times, 1710, close it out!,” Burnt Hills Coach Gary Bynon said. “We just couldn’t today.”
The Spartans opened up their Final Four gauntlet against Section I’s Walter Panas losing the first two contests, 25-14 and 2512 with only four sets remaining to advance to Sunday’s championship finals.
“You could tell because after losing the two (first round versus Walter Panas) we need to get in and win a couple games and we had our chances in that game,” Bynon said. “That was a great volleyball match, two teams going at it, then again we just had some unforced errors after 22 (points) that cost us in that.
“One point is one point, but boy
when you lose 28-26 you can sit there and say ‘Boy I wish I had that one point.’”
The Spartans came up short in a heart-pounding third set, losing 28-26 and then falling in the fourth set, 25-15 which sealed Burnt Hills’ fate that they would not make a trip to Glens Falls Sunday afternoon.
But it is in that moment that the Spartans shined.
“They knew going into those two games that their season was over and our school district, the type of kids and the type of families we have, those kids went out and battled,” Bynon said. “They didn’t have to do that, they didn’t have to do that at all and they went out and represented.
“It’s a big part being in and playing these games that to you don’t matter, because they matter to somebody else and that’s what we talked about. That was big game for King’s Park, if we win one of those, they’re eliminated, that’s a big game. It’s a big game for Williamsville East, it’s a big game for a lot of people, but our kids went out and played. They played for themselves, they played for our school district and they played for the sport and I can’t say enough about how hard they played.”
There is little solace in leaving the Cool Insuring Arena winless Saturday afternoon, but Burnt Hills was facing the best three teams remaining in Class A.
“These teams that were above us today had big finishers,” Bynon said. “For example (Yvette) Burcescu from Panas, she’s one of the best players in six states in the Northeast. She’s going to Tulane; they give her the ball, point over.
“When you don’t have that, you have to play perfect, you have to serve perfect, we have to do those things to keep us in a game, to keep them somewhat out of system and if we just couldn’t do that today and we had been. We’d been playing some pretty good volleyball, but this is a different story, this is the Final Four and I’ve been on both ends of it and we tried just about everything today.”