Lady Marines fall just short
Push Massapequa to brink in AA final
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Chelsea Braga had 36 kills in the championship match.
Ron Manfredi/Herald
Long Beach brought its ‘A’ game to C.W. Post on Tuesday night, but it wasn’t enough to dethrone Massapequa as Nassau Class AA girls’ volleyball champion.
The top-seeded and undefeated Lady Chiefs outlasted the No. 2 Lady Marines in a five-set thriller, 25-21, 25-23, 21-25, 24-26, 25-20, to capture their 10th straight county title before a crowd of more than 500. Massapequa, which beat Long Beach in four sets in last year’s final, rallied from four points down to take the first set, scored the last four points of the second set, and came back from a 17-13 deficit in the final set.
“We left it all out on the court,” Long Beach coach Kerri Rehnback said. “We brought our best game, and I told the girls they need to walk away with their heads held high. It’s upsetting, especially for the seniors who won’t get another shot, but everyone should be proud of the way they played tonight.”
Senior Katie Bryson totaled 33 assists, 10 kills and seven digs and senior Katie Newman added 23 digs and 12 kills for Massapequa (18-0), which lost only one set in 17 previous matches. For Long Beach (14-3), junior Chelsea Braga had 36 kills, senior Haley Birnbaum 20 kills and senior Sydney Folk 57 assists.
It would’ve been easy for the Lady Marines to waive the white flag after losing the first two sets and falling behind 9-7 in the third against a team that swept them twice during the regular season. But they stormed back. Braga, who put on a power display all night, showed the way by scoring four straight points to put them ahead in the third set for good. With three kills from Birnbaum and service aces from junior Jessica Amen and sophomores Tricia Murphy and Kaley Coner along the way, Long Beach made sure there would be no sweep this time.
Neither team led by more than three points in a fourth set that had most of the crowd on both sides standing down the stretch. It was tied at 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 before a Braga kill and an errant smash attempt by Massapequa’s Krissy Silk (10 kills) brought the match to go the distance.
After an ace by Amen gave the Lady Marines a 17-13 lead in the decisive set, Massapequa regained momentum. The Lady Chiefs scored five straight points to go ahead and five more in a row after it was tied at 18. They won it on a kill by junior Samantha Berna.
“We came here with a positive attitude, knowing we can play with them and beat them,” Rehnback said. “Once we won a game we were fired up and confident. We put them in an unfamiliar position, and to their credit they responded.”
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