The Massapequa varsity Volleyball team kicked off their season in impressive fashion, taking a fast-paced match at East Meadow High School in three straight games Thursday.
The Chiefs seemed to pick up right where they left off following last year's perfect championship season.
The best of five contest started with Massapequa reaching into their bag of tricks in the first game. They kept the Jets off balance with a complex series of feints, parries, and fakes easily winning 25-12.
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"We started the first game very clean," Chief's coach Steve Mariano said. "Passing was clean. Everyone was talking and moving well, the offense was gelling together, and our transition game was fast and good."
But the Chiefs seemed to lose their focus a bit during the second game, which was more tightly contested. The Jets managed to rally back against their opponents with some solid serving and volleying. At one point, clearly frustrated, coach Mariano called out for his players to concentrate after missing a big point.
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But Massapequa managed to squeak out a win 25-22.
"We kind of sat back and relaxed a little too much," Mariano said of the second game. "Our movement slowed down, and we got a little sloppy. That's one of the things we're working on at practice right now- our court leadership, and not letting that happen."
The Chiefs returned to form for game number three, leaping to 9-1 early lead. The shellshocked Jets called a timeout at 18-3, with their coach obviously upset at the trouncing his team was taking.
It worked a bit. The Jets staged a minor comeback, but it was too little, too late and the Chiefs closed out the match 25-16.
"In the third game, my captains re-grouped the team," Mariano said. "We re-focused — sometimes you need a good scare — and I tried to get some more of my players in to make my bench deeper. They did a great job."
Player Chris Husmann admitted that last year's success might have made the team a little over-confident during pre-season.
"Because we were champions, we thought we were going to come in and blaze through all the teams," he said. "But we had a tournament against Bellmore last week where they beat us, and they showed us that we needed to lose one game to get it out of our system, since we had a perfect season last year. But then we had a scrimmage against Bellmore, and we knew we could beat them, and we did."
Husmann's teammate Christian Smith said the Chiefs did a good job getting the early win even though they have a different look this year.
"A lot of kids were nervous because we've got a young team — a lot of sophomores and juniors — but overall I thought we played a pretty good game," he said. "The second game was a little shaky, but we just re-grouped and battled back."
Mariano says he expects great things from his team once again this year, and that they possess the tools to bring home yet another championship.
"We have a lot of offensive weapons this year that we're using from all six positions," he said. "That gives us a lot of options as long as we keep our passing clean."
