Baldwin primed for playoffs

The Baldwin girls’ volleyball team is making its final preparations for the playoffs as it wraps up an already successful season, but will the loss of one its most prominent offensive players and inspiration leaders prevent a potentially deep playoff run?
During the Lady Bruins’ victory at Wheatley on Oct. 3, junior setter Kaitlyn Trepeta injured her leg during the decisive fourth set and will miss the remainder of the season. Since then, coach April Mosca has been searching for the right formula to help the outside hitters adjust to a new passing style with various replacement setters.
The result so far has been two losses in three matches to drop Baldwin’s record to 8-4 in Conference AA/B/C1 and 8-5 overall. The Lady Bruins squandered a two-sets-to-none lead against Seaford in a devastating defeat on Oct. 7 and, after a straight-set win over Farmingdale, fell 3-1 to Plainview-Old Bethpage on Oct. 18.
“Kaitlyn was a natural leader,” Mosca said. “She’s very quick to get to that net for all the passes. Not having Kaitlyn in that setting spot has thrown everyone for quite the loop.”
The team had won its first five conference matches and sat 7-3 overall at the time of the injury. Now, players such as junior Alyssa Santos and sophomore Kirsten Mahler will help try to fill the void.

Baldwin will likely finish third in the conference behind powerhouses Massapequa and Syosset, which they will face in the final two games of the regular season. The Lady Bruins lost at Massapequa in straight sets on Sept. 23 before an intense five-set loss to Syosset two days later in which they had to win the fourth set to set up the decisive stanza, where they fell just short at 25-23.
There is a good chance that the two teams will meet again in the postseason following the Oct. 28 finale. The Lady Braves have proved to be a thorn in the side of the Lady Bruins, knocking them out in each of the last three playoff quarterfinals.
“They’re fun to play against,” Mosca said. “They’re super consistent. We have a lot of height, but they have a lot of little people running around and they don’t want any balls dropped. We definitely have different strengths than they do.”
To get back to its season-opening form, Baldwin will need to continue getting strong hitting from Briana Espert and Tevin Mahlstadt and solid defense from Gabrielle Biggs. Fellow junior Kate McLeary is the team’s most-improved player, according to Mosca, and it showed with nine solo blocks in a five-set victory over Oceanside on Sept. 27 and seven kills and five blocks against Farmingdale.
“She’s finally learning how to hit the ball,” Mosca said of the six-foot-two McLeary. “Her blocking has always been consistent, but she’s realizing how good a blocker she really is.”
Mosca also said her team’s serving, which struggled at the beginning of the season, has gotten markedly better as the campaign progressed.