Pine Bush dethrones Kingston
Kingston High’s volleyball team, which reached the state final four last year, saw its quest to return end in frustration Sunday as Pine Bush swept the Tigers for the Section 9, Class AA championship.
Pine Bush, which split the teams’ two regular-season matches, dethroned the Tigers 25-11, 25-17, 25-18 at Mount Saint Mary College. It was Pine Bush’s first title in three years.
Taylor Pannell (11 kills), AnJalyna Talmadge (six kills, six blocks), Rileigh Meyer (six kills, one block), Nicole Dzaidos (11 assists) and Taylor Jones (eight assists, two kills, five blocks) led the (17-4) Lady Bushmen.
“She’s a great player,” Kingston coach Nicole Molinaro said about the 6-foot-1 Pannell. “We have to take advantage when she’s not in the front row and we didn’t do that.”
The (13-4) Tigers came out flat and never gained traction. They led only twice during the entire match — scoring the first point of the second set and taking a 2-1 lead in set three. The rest of the time they played catch-up and never put together a string of three or more points.
Pine Bush reeled off seven straight points to take control of the first set.
“I think that we may have been over-analyzing things a little bit. They came out with more energy at the start than we did. I always say the team with the most energy wins and that wasn’t us today,” Molinaro said.
“Getting an early lead is normally a struggle for us,” she added. “We’re normally used to being down in the first set and come back, but we weren’t able to do that today.”
Kingston was within 1410 in the second set, but the Lady Bushmen pulled away.
The Tigers stayed within striking distance in the
set three, trailing only 128. Pannell blocked the ball at the net, then scored on a kill to open a 14-8 margin. Pine Bush stayed in control after that.
Tori Boulay led the Tigers with 20 assists, five digs, three kills and two aces, keying an attack featuring Tori Ost (10 kills, three digs), Shannon Bonewit (seven kills, two blocks, 11 digs) and Kailyn Lukaszewski (three kills, four digs).
The Tigers, who beat Warwick for the title last year, wanted to restrain any early jitters.
“I think our plan was to be a little bit more mellow,” Molinaro acknowledged. “I think energy is different that excitement, so we were very prepared not to go too far with that, but it didn’t carry over
onto the court when we wanted that energy.”
Little went right. The Tigers hit .135 as a team, served 89 percent and even had five passing errors.
“Our defense was off as well, unfortunately,” Molinaro said. “Even when we were practicing, we were a little off. It’s going to happen some days. You just never want it on a championship day.
“It definitely wasn’t our best.”
Kingston loses seven players to graduation, including Ost, Bonewit and Lukaszewski. Boulay will be a senior next year.
“We have a lot of work to do. We’re definitely going to do some rebuilding,” Molinaro said. “We’re losing a lot of hitting, but our defense will be good.”