BY BEN STRACK
As Bruno Mars’ dance-worthy “Uptown Funk” blared during warm-ups in SUNY Old Westbury’s bustling gym, the Plainview girls volleyball team held straight faces, ready for the challenge at hand. After all, the other bench held 15 Chiefs looking to defend 15 straight county championships and keep a 16-
year conference win streak alive.
Ninety minutes later, Massapequa had seized the coveted 16th title in three games, 25-16, 26-24, 27-25, moving on to the Long Island Championship Saturday, Nov. 7. Coach CarolAnn Habeeb-Kiel was as happy as ever, resorting to joyful slang in order to describe it.
“Just like it was the first—fantabulous,” said Habeeb-Kiel. “It’s like the first…it’s their first as a unit. Everybody always says, ‘Don’t you get used to it?’ No, I never get used it to it. I always get nervous, always get excited.”
Nerves and excitement were felt with good reason during the Tuesday night thriller, as labeling the saga as a straight-set victory doesn’t tell the whole story. The No. 2 Hawks led by senior Maria Coniglio, who came in with a 13-2 conference record, went away anything but quietly against Conference AA-1’s No. 1 team.
Rebounding from a jittery first game, the Plainview squad put Massapequa on its heels in game two. At 23-23, Jamie Yonker outdueled two blockers above the net to put the underdog a point away from evening the match. But two kills by junior setter Jamie Smith sandwiched a Plainview error, as Massapequa momentarily avoided dropping a game to a conference foe for the first time this season.
Even entrenched in a two-game hole, the Hawks would not surrender. Four kills by Coniglio, two Chiefs net violations and an ace by Caitlin Trancho helped fuel a 10-2 Plainview start. But Senior Kole Pollock helped rally her troop from behind with kills at 10-4, 12-8, 14-9 and an ace to close the gap to 14-11. Down 17-11, Massapequa scored five straight, later tying the game at 18-18 after Smith’s block on Coniglio.
The back-and-forth affair led to a 25-24 Plainview lead, its second game point of the match. But 6-foot-2 eighth grader Gabriella Heimbauer silenced the Hawks crowd with a kill tipped by blockers that acted as a changeup to the back line. A net violation by Plainview’s setter preceded the ultimate knockout punch, again by Smith, as the Massapequa bench spilled onto the court in a heap of exuberant joy.
“It’s one of the best feelings in the world, no matter what point it is,” said Smith, who had a team-high 13 kills, adding nine assists and two aces. “My entire team, I’m just super proud of them for all that we’ve been able to accomplish but we’re still not done yet and we have to work as hard as we can for the next game.”
Sweeping every conference opponent in three games this Fall, including Plainview twice in the regular season, the Chiefs seemed in uncharted territory during the deciding points of games two and three. Nevertheless, Massapequa tightened up defensively and used its height to find a way to prevail.
“It was scary, but I knew Plainview had potential and so did my team so we were kind of expecting it,” said Pollock, who had seven kills on the night. “We knew that once we really got it together, we would get back and we would win.”
Having lost five starters, Habeeb-Kiel was happy to keep the program’s winning tradition alive with a collection of fresh faces. The relentless spirit is what makes each Nassau AA title taste just as sweet.
“Bouncing back [after] losing by eight points, it just shows grit, it shows the size of our fight,” the program’s legendary coach said of the clinching game. “And I can’t ask for anything more than that because at this point of the season, it’s all about the size of the fight.”
