Angela Robb gave her FDR volleyball team very simple instructions in the third and final set of a back-and-forth battle with rival and top-seed Leon Goldstein.
Don’t take too many chances and don’t be the team to make mistakes. She didn’t want her team to get too excited as it attempted to beat the Dolphins, a division rival, for the first time in four tries.
“I asked them to play it safe,” the Cougars coach said. “Just play it safe. When you are going to make a serve, play it safe. You go up to spike a ball, play it safe, because if you make mistakes they are going to get the points.”
FDR took advantage of poor Goldstein serving and indecision on defense. The Dolphins rallied to win the second set and appeared ready to make their move past the Cougars, who kept long volleys alive, in the third, but a potential point from Kristen Herchenroder was called out on a close call. It would have cut FDR’s lead to just three points. Goldstein never found its footing again
Allison Ahmed finished it off with back-to-back kills to give FDR a 25-22, 25-27, 25-16 upset in the PSAL Class B girls volleyball semifinals Friday at Hunter College. It plays No. 3 John Adams in the final 5 p.m. Tuesday at Hunter.
“Them beating us the first three times it made us want to beat them and made us want to come back and show them what we got,” junior Devin DiPietro said.
That was evident in the first set, the first FDR took off its rival all season.
Goldstein led 21-16 after an ace from Karina Tsareva. Her next serve was called out, opening the door for FDR. Back-to-back kills from DiPietro and Veronika Curillova tied the score at 22 and DiPietro’s kill to end it brought about an explosion from her FDR team.
“This is the best day ever,” Barbara Curillova, Veronika’s twin, said. “They beat us three times. It’s crazy.”
The Dolphins were disappointed in their inability to close the first set out. Herchenroder had a string of four straight aces late in the second set to give Goldstein a 21-18 lead. FDR tied the score at 24 when Rashelle Ripa hit a return out, before a Herchenroder kill and a Christina McKeever ace put it away. A sloppy third set kept them from completing the comeback.
“We saw it all coming together and trying to get it back, then one mistake,” McKeever said. “They really weren’t making mistakes. We let ourselves down. It just kept adding up.”
The Cougars are back in the finals for the third straight season, after losing to Benjamin Banneker last year and winning the ‘B’ title in 2007. Knocking off their biggest rival certainly breads plenty of momentum going in.
“It was truly amazing,” DiPietro said. “It was something we wanted so bad.”