Vikings Volleyball Extends Win Streak to Four

The Vikings varsity volleyball squad won its fourth consecutive match on Thursday, sweeping East Meadow by scores of 25-22, 26-24 and 25-19. The Jets did not go down easily, though, fighting to stay in the games.

In game two, the Jets were down 23-19, but scored four straight to tie the game. The score was tied again at 24 before the Vikings scored twice for the win. The Vikings had trouble putting away the Jets in game three as well, allowing a 20-10 advantage slip away as East Meadow scored nine of the next 14 points.

Although the Vikings prevailed with a six-point edge, it was unnecessarily close for Coach Maria Giamanco. "What happened in the third game?" she asked her team after the match. "They scored nine points while we only scored five. When we get into a tight match, can we afford to give up nine points before we score five?"

One of the team's three captains, Adam Epstein, agreed. "We played well at the beginnings of the games with a lot of kills," he said, "but we allowed them back in."

Giamanco attributed that to East Meadow's refusal to quit. "East Meadow has a great ability to pursue the ball and keep it in play," she said. "They're fantastic on defense, so we had to get into rally mode. Their record is not so great, but they're not an opponent to be underestimated."

But it was her team's ineffectiveness in game three that caused her the most concern. "We're going to live and die by our bench — the ability of our substitutes to come in and deliver something meaningful," Giamanco said.

Above all, Giamanco views these final regular-season matches her team's tune-up for the playoffs. "If we focus on what we have to do when we come up against the teams that defeated us, we just might be able to take them down."