NYS VOLLEYBALL: CANDOR TOPS LAFAYETTE, 3-1, TO RETURN TO FINAL 4 (24 PHOTOS) (2024-11-16)
By TIM TAYLOR
Valley Sports Report
CANDOR — The Candor volleyball team will get another shot at a state championship after defeating Lafayette, 3-1, in the NYSPHSAA Class D regional finals here Saturday.
The Coyotes won the first set, 25-21, dropped the second, 25-16, then won the next two, 25-15 and 25-23.
“We talked about it during the week in practice and I knew they'd be a formidable opponent,” said coach Pam Quinlan. “They’ve got a great setter. The libero did a great job. Great job on defense, all of them. We had to really work hard, I think, to score points, and they just kept at it, and we just had to talk about staying within ourselves and just doing what we've been doing all season.”
The bookend games were tight right down to the wire with the final set keeping fans on the edge of their seats.
In game four, Kate Stouffer, Nicola Soper and Emmi Makie got the Coyotes off to a 3-0 lead then, after the Lancers tied it up, extended their lead to 7-3, taking advantage of a handful of LaFayette hitting errors.
The Lancers regrouped, bouncing back to tie the score at eighth and again at 10 before Candor scored the next five points.
Try as they might, the Coyotes couldn’t pull away, but worked an 18-15 lead only to have the visitors rally back to take a 21-18 advantage on the strength of a block and a kill by Mya Stafford.
Candor would appear to notch a sideout when the ball hit the rafters, then bounced off the basketball backboard, but the call was reversed and the point replayed. It didn’t make a difference as the Coyotes followed up with another sideout.
Trailing, 21-19, Candor pulled within a point on a LaFayette hit out of bounds and tied the score on Jillian Teribury’s ace. Makie’s shot off a front row defender made it 22-21 and another Lancer hit OB pushed the margin to 23-21.
LaFayette didn’t let up, however, as Stafford came through with key back-to-back hits to make it 23-23. Makie would close out the scoring, notching a sideout off the Lancers’ Chylure Bucktooth followed by a match-ending kill.
“You just hope your servers get back there, which they did, and make the other team handle the ball. We had a couple of shots, maybe even some mishits that just happened to find a hole on their side of the court,” Quinalna said. “I think we got some good balls to our setter (Swartz) and she was able to get them to those people that have been putting the ball away for us.”
The third set was crucial toward getting Candor’s momentum back. The Coyotes worked a couple of early four-point leads then, while ahead, 9-7, Makie scored a sideout with a shot to the back line then Malley Heidl served up an ace for an 11-7 advantage.
With an 11-8 lead in hand, the Coyotes reeled off four straight points as Phoebe Swartz rejected a Lancer shot at the net, then followed with an ace just inside the back line, and Makie followed that with a couple of kill shots.
Soper drilled a sideout shot to the middle and Swartz put away a misdirection tap to make it 17-9. Lafayette tried to rally, but never got closer than seven points.
Quinlan felt the third set was an important aspect of winning the match.
“I think that was huge,” she said. “That was big to go in 2-1 instead of 1-2 and come out of that battle, and kind of take that momentum into the next game. I think that was a key win.”
The first game of the day was a battle despite Candor looking like it might dominate as it jumped out toa 4-0 advantage. The Coyotes would extend their lead to five points six different times, but couldn't pull away.
Finally, they would make it six, 14-8, on a Swartz ace, then increase the lead to 16-9, on a Heidl sideout off a back row defender.
The Lancers would refocus and cut the lead to 17-15, but a Candor sideout, a Heidl ace and a LaFayette double hit made it 20-15.
Candor pushed its lead to 23-16 behind some solid plays by Teribury, Swartz and Soper, but LaFayette called a timeout and came back with a rally. Highlighted by a pair of Bucktooth aces, the Lancers closed the gap to 23-21.
The Coyotes took a timeout and responded with a sideout to the back row and an ace by Makie.
Unfazed, Lafayette came back to take the second set, leading from start to finish. Aubrie Jones rejected Candor at the net for a sideout and a Coyote miscue made it 2-0.
The Lancers extended their advantage to 8-3 with help from four Candor errors, then Stafford and Lexani Johnson found holes in the defense to give LaFayette an 11-4 cushion.
The Coyotes retaliated with a three-point burst, but the Lancers countered with a five-point surge to build a 16-7 lead. Candor trimmed it back to five at 17-12 with the assistance of three LaFayette hitting errors.
The Lancers took a timeout, then scored the next five points. A pair of nice hits by Bucktooth preceded two blocks wrapped around a kill, all from Johnson, to give the Section III champs a 22-12 cushion. Candor would get four points back before the set ended in LaFayette’s favor.
Candor seemed to get out of sync in game two.
“I think we did,” Quinlan said. “We talked about the fact that we let them control the tempo of that game. They got the momentum and they didn't let up and we struggled with serve receive and passing. We struggled to get the ball to our hitters. I think we struggled a little bit defensively. They found some holes. I know they pushed some balls to the deep corners that we had trouble defending.
“Their middles connected on some good balls and it was just a game where we just were kind of, you know, we. We fought back, but we just dug ourselves in a little bit too deep to come back from in that one.”
Makie, Soper and Swartz paced Candor with double-doubles. Makie had 16 kills and 15 points, which included a pair of aces. She also had nine digs, one solo block and three block assists. Soper had 15 kills, 10 digs, seven points and one solo block. Swartz dished out 33 assists to go with 12 points (3 aces). She also had three block assists, three digs and one kill.
While names like Makie, Soper and Swartz have become synonymous with success on the volleyball court at Candor, the Coyotes had other players step up and help out as well.
“I think Kate Stouffer, my other outside, I think she had some good swings,” Quinlan said. “She also had some great back row play. Ryleigh Bowman came in and gave us some good serves and some good defense. In that third game, I thought our other middle, Emmi McCracken, did a nice job. She's become a more offensive player, trying to put some balls away; they have some big blockers at the net and trying to work through that.
Stouffer scored 14 points (2 aces), and had three kills and six digs; Heidl contributed eight points (2 aces), a kill, two assists, one block assist and five digs; McCracken added three kills and one block assist; Teribury chipped in with nine points and five digs; and Bowman tacked on one point and one dig.
Jones recorded 13 kills, six blocks, seven digs and an ace for LaFayette (18-4), which rallied from an 0-2 deficit to upset second-ranked Bishop Grimes in the sectional championship match. Bucktooth had two blocks, 12 digs, 31 assists and four aces; Stafford finished with 10 kills and a block; and Shayla Benedict added 19 digs.
Candor (13-1), the highest remaining ranked team at No. 4, will compete in the Final 4 pool play Friday at 2 p.m in Glens Falls. Also competing are No. 8 Ellicottville, No. 10 Mekeel Christian and unranked Tuxedo. The championship match is Saturday at 4 p.m.
The three-time state champion Coyotes looked primed to make it four titles last year, but with NYSPHSAA adding a sixth classification it had to switch to a one-and-done bracket format last year. That proved costly for Candor which fell 3-2 to eventual champion Chautauqua Lake after grabbing a 2-0 lead in the semis.
“I'm very pleased that it's back to pool play,” Quinlan said. “You get an opportunity to see all the other teams there,” she said. “To me, that just is a good way of getting the top two teams in the finals.”
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PHOTOS BY SARAH HALL. ... TEAM PHOTO AND GALLERY BY TIM TAYLOR.
...click here for video or photo gallery
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