Lady Rams lose to Mamaroneck in playoffs
November 6, 2024 at 11:14 p.m.
Dig they must, and when they don't dig enough, they get buried—at least that's the way it works in volleyball. And the first team to get to 25 points wins the set. And the first team that wins three sets wins the match.
Usually the team with the most digs does the winning—digs here meaning balls scooped up into the air before they hit the ground with hands locked like tennis racquets. The digger passes the ball so it reaches a "killer" on the rise—the killer here being like a basketball player going up for a dunk.
What's in a name
Instead of dunking the near basketball-sized ball into the basket, the so-called killer, a point scorer, tries to hit the ball where their opponents aren't, over the elevated net to a place on the court where the rival team player can't reach it or return it. When that happens, it's a kill.
When done properly, and often enough, those digs and kills become hypnotizing, a kind of synchronized aerial ballet that is beautiful to watch because of the ruthless grace involved.
That's the way it went back and forth, back and forth, windshield-wiper like, between the vastly-improved Port Chester Lady Rams volleyball team and their Mamaroneck counterparts in their opening round playoff game last Saturday (11/2) away.
It was the kind of closely fought match that could have gone either way.
Rams on losing side
But unfortunately for the Lady Rams, it wound up going Mamaroneck's way.
And Mamaroneck, the fourth seed in the Section 1 playoffs, wound up beating fifth seed Port Chester in a three-set shutout.
Sophomore setter Julia Wolff tips the ball over the net in the Lady Rams’ Oct. 19 home contest versus Ramapo.By Joseph DeCarlo
The Tigers edged the Rams 25-20, 25-22, 25-15 with Mamaroneck's Lily Reynolds (seven kills, one block), Addie Dorfman (seven digs, three assists, two blocks), and Lindsay Suman (eight digs, three kills, a mind-boggling 27 assists, two aces and two blocks) wearing down Port Chester's Big 3 of leading senior point scorers Nataly Suertegaray, Camila Nunez and Alicia Bambace, also the Lady Rams’ top server, with junior Skylar Sams their leading digger, having notched her 500th career dig late in the season.
So losing 3-0 in the first game of the one-and-done playoffs wasn't what the Lady Rams had in mind.
Solid fall season
Not after a regular 7-7 season where they had worked so hard and played so tough, beating prestige teams like Fox Lane, White Plains and Carmel as well as teams they expected to beat like Lincoln and Mount Vernon.
But win or lose, the Rams had rock music playing and the home high school gym rocking with well-played games against the Ossinings and Ketchams as well as the beatables.
Head coach Stephanie Costabile, herself a winner on the prep school and college level, had the Lady Rams fighting for every point, working hard as a cohesive team, never letting their energy drop, putting in the time in the gym so they could be competitive against the area's best teams—and they were as evidenced by how close the playoff loss to Mamaroneck was.
They were beautiful to watch as they played the game the way it is meant to be played, doing themselves, Port Chester and Costabile proud.
The leading ladies
And they did it with a style and flair that extended from top to bottom in a balanced roster lineup that, besides the players mentioned earlier, included senior Karah Provenzano, juniors Emily Garcia and Sofia Greco, sophomores Alyssa Gagnon, Amelia Reis, Gianna Sirena, Analia Sosa, Cynthia Tuba and Julia Wolff and freshman Keyla Guayllasaca.
That kind of balance indicates that even though they failed to hold that Tiger in the playoffs this year, they could well be back next year and in the years to come because Costabile has the program headed in the right direction.
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