St. Francis Prep celebrates its fourth straight Brooklyn/Queens girls volleyball championship. (Damion Reid)
It wasn’t enough for St. Francis Prep to just win another Brooklyn/Queens title. The Terriers wanted to put an exclamation point on their fourth straight undefeated season.
“We always go into the game wanting to crush the team, wanting to do the best we can,” junior outside hitter Talia Colasante said. “No letups.”
St. Francis Prep, ranked No. 1 in the city by The Post, didn’t take its foot off the accelerator from the first serve to the last. An ace from senior Julia Paternoster fittingly ended the Terriers’ dominant, 25-9, 25-9, 25-10 win against rival Archbishop Molloy in the CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens Division I girls volleyball championship match Thursday in Fresh Meadows, Queens. It’s SFP’s fourth consecutive Diocesan title.
“Four years in a row not losing any matches is a tough thing to do and they came out and they really showed that they wanted it this year,” Terriers coach Kevin Colucci said.
Molloy (8-5) got the first point of every set, but then St. Francis Prep (12-0) came on like a whirlwind. Colasante had an 8-0 service run in the first set that was marked by three straight blocks from sophomore middle hitter Kelly Flynn. Sophomore setter Kendra McCalla had an 11-0 service run in the second set and Colasante had a 5-0 service run in the third that extended a 13-7 lead to an 18-7 advantage.
“Serves are everything,” Colasante said. “If you don’t have your serves down, you won’t have anything. Serves start off the game, end the game, goes all through the game.”
The Stanners weren’t able to generate any offense, because they didn’t have their serve receive or passing together. The Terriers, on the other hand, got their offense from a host of players, which has been their hallmark this year.
Colasante had six kills and three aces, sophomore outside hitter Kiara Pierre had six kills, Flynn had five kills and four blocks, junior middle Caitlin O’Doherty had four kills and two blocks and Paternoster had three aces. Setter Julia Hannigan had 15 assists and, as usual, made all the right decisions running the team, and McCalla had three aces and eight assists.
St. Francis didn’t play this well against Molloy the two times they met in the regular season. The Stanners took a set in the first meeting and the Terriers were frustrated with a lack of communication despite a sweep in the last. All of those problems were resolved Thursday.
“Our main issue was talking, which shouldn’t be a problem,” Colasante said. “It should be natural to us. As a team, that was our only struggle. Today we had everything together, we had the talking together. It just worked out.”
Much like it has each one of the last four seasons. Back in 2006, St. Francis Prep beat Molloy twice in the regular season, but the Stanners shocked the Terriers in the championship. But in 2007, Prep beat Molloy in the final, in 2008 the victim was Mary Louis and last year it was Fontbonne Hall. Things have come full circle.
“It shows how great this program is, that no matter who graduates, people keep coming up, stepping up into the spot and doing what they can to help out,” Hannigan said.
That’s why Colucci was practically speechless afterward, the capacity, partisan crowd cheering at the top of its lungs for St. Francis Prep. The Terriers couldn’t let down their home fans and didn’t stop applying pressure until the final whistle. They’ll head into next weekend’s CHSAA Class AA state tournament at York College as the top seed from Brooklyn/Queens.
“I wanted to make sure our girls didn’t let up,” Colucci said. “Sometimes during the season they got a little flat or a little overconfident. I said you gotta drive. We still have to go into next week. We want to do some good things next week. This is kind of like the stepping stone.”
Not to mention a milestone.