Schreiber Remains Perfect With Win Over Syosset

Despite being undefeated, coach Maria Giamanco said the Schreiber varsity volleyball team needed a wake up call. She said the team has suffered from slow starts thus far this season and that it could come back to haunt them down the road.

"That's been common for us, and we're trying to make it not so common," Giamanco said of the early-game woes. "It's taking us some time to get into a rhythm."

That wake up call and that rhythm may have arrived following a first-set loss to Syosset on Wednesday. The team looked flat in losing the first set 25-20 to the Braves. But the Vikings finally woke up and beat Syosset fairly handily, 25-15, 25-13 and 25-20 in the ensuing sets.

In the second set, thanks largely to Adam Epstein bringing geometry class to the court. After the team was blocked on numerous spike attempts in the first set, Epstein threw off the Braves by evenly mixing power shots and dinking the ball over the net at angles.

"He has a pretty good reputation as an attacker," Giamanco said of Epstein. "That's why Syosset was triple-blocking him. Finally the mind-body connection came through and he started using those angles. He did that and they had to come off that triple block."

With the win, the Vikings improved to 4-0 in conference.

Syosset boys volleyball coach Todd Donaghy was honest about his team's chances going into Wednesday's home matchup with the Schreiber Vikings. But following the four-set loss, he left the Syosset gym with some hope for the future.

"Right now they're basically what we want to be," Donaghy said of the Vikings. "But the gap isn't quite as big as I thought. They're within reach. Can we get there? I don't know."

The Vikings will try to remain perfect when they host Massapequa on Friday at 5 p.m.