Sports
Sayville Boys Volleyball Team Advances to Playoffs
After beating Hauppauge in a tie-breaker match, the Golden Flashes will face top-ranked Eastport.
Sayville Golden Flashes beat Hauppauge Eagles 3-2 in a come-from-behind victory that had spectators on their feet. Both teams ended regular Division II play with a 7-7 record, resulting in a tie-breaker to see who would make it into the playoffs. Down two matches, the Flashes rallied to win three straight and continue into the postseason.
Score: Sayville 3, Hauppauge 2
Records: Sayville 8-7 post-season, Hauppauge 7-8 final.
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The Hero: Seniors Tyler Nolan and D.J. Esposito-Kellley, and junior Kevin O'Neill stayed calm, collected and focused on the win despite dropping the first two sets.
Battling through the third set, junior Joe Black served his team to a 4-point advantage starting with a spike from O'Neill. This broke open the lead to 18-4, a victory margin preserved and extended by the Golden Flashes to win 25-19.
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O'Neill put Sayville well on their way to their second win by serving up a 8-1 lead to start the fourth set. Nolan extended the Golden Flashes lead to 11 points serving aces. Kelley helped led the team's offense making 40 assists.
The Turning Point: Down two matches and one game away from elimination, Sayville turned it around winning two sets 25-19 and 25-14 back-to-back to keep the pressure on Hauppauge.
Momentum had shifted from the Eagles to the Golden Flashes as the home crowd going wild on the sidelines further motivated Sayville.
The Quote: "We went down 2 sets and that's always tough to come back from. What it comes down to is my kids were pumped, they wanted it more, they had the crowd behind them cheering them on," said coach Anthony DeAngelis.
The Bottom Line: Hauppauge and Sayville teams were fairly equally matched. Both had gone 5-2 in the early season, to drop a few games and go 2-5 in the second half of Division play. In previous matches, they had beat each other by near identical scores.
Hauppauge was up 2 matches, but showed their nerves under pressure. The Golden Flashes saw this as a weakness and took advantage of it.
Key Stat: Senior Tyler Nolan had 33 kills and served three aces to led the Golden Flashes to victory.
Who's Next? Sayville will travel to take on No. 1 ranked Eastport in the second round of the Division II playoffs.
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