By HUNTER O. LYLE
JAMESTOWN, NY – Life, death and taxes. And the Portville volleyball team winning the Section VI championship.
Despite facing down a heavy flow of roster turnover at the start of this season, the Panthers’ new crop of talent picked up the torch and ran with it all season, capping off their dominant year with a four-set win over Randolph to earn yet another Class C title.
“It’s surreal. We have reached goals with this year’s group and last year’s group that I didn’t think were possible,” said Portville head coach Paul Mann, who took over the head coaching role two years ago after being a long-time assistant coach. “It’s all on (the players.) They have to put the work in, the practice in, the dedication in. It’s really hard to put into words.”
The Panthers entered the championship stage with their knives fully sharpened. After rolling to the Class C semis with a 14-3 record, the top seed in the bracket a sweep over Allegany-Limestone in the quarterfinals, Portville’s persistence was put to the test against No. 4 Chautauqua Lake, seeing their first and only five-set match of the season. Emerging with a hard-fought win, Mann believes it was just what the Panthers needed.
“Any time you’re challenged to that extent and you can grit it out and come out on top, it’s just such a tremendous confidence boost,” said Mann. “It was a good experience. You need that. Not everything is going to be ‘win three sets and go home.’ It’s not how it works. When you can win a grind-it-out, dog fight like that, it reassures you that what you’ve been doing, what you’ve been preparing for is there.”
Rolling into the championship game with a head full of steam, Portville broke loose early. Weathering the initial back-and-forth, the Panthers began stringing points together with a collection of aces, taps to the gaps and powerful slams from their front line. A 11-0 run put them atop a 14-6 lead before closing the set out with a 10-1 stretch and 25-11 win.
However, in the second, the momentum quickly changed.
Starting their work at the service line, the Cardinals began collecting points with aces and unreturned serves. As their budding lead began to grow, finding a 7-3 margin, Randolph surged while Portville lagged behind. Suffering several miscues and miscommunications the Panthers failed to cover the floor and protect the net, ultimately still trailing at 14-11. As their struggles continued, they watched Randolph even the series with a 25-21 second set victory.
“It seemed like we got really, really tight. It felt like we were trying to do too much, not realizing that, no matter what, every play is one point,” said Mann. “You only get one point per play and we just got tight and some errors broke down. That’s where you see that youth creep in a little bit and the uncertainty creep in.”
The Cardinals’ continued to force the issue entering the third. With crisp passing and movement, they out-paced Portville, albeit, to a slim 5-3 advantage. But when push came to shove, the Panthers went to what they knew.
Cutting off the free-bees from the service line, Portville collected the serves sent against them and fed them to their forwards, namely Gaitley Miaolo and Emily Scanlon. Finding the right rotations and movements, the Panthers returned to form and, after hammering down a handful of hard-hit slams, they knotted the game at 6-6 before taking their first lead at 8-7. As players up and down the front line began notching kills, Portville ripped the momentum away with a 10-1 run that put them ahead 15-8.
“I just told the team to stay within themselves. They didn’t need to jump higher or hit harder or serve faster. They just had to stay together and trust each other,” said Mann. “It’s a team out there and everything has to come together.”
Although they began feeding their own heavy-hitter, Addyson Shawley, Randolph’s comeback efforts proved to fall in vain, ultimately succumbing to a 2-1 set deficit with a 25-18 defeat.
Smelling blood in the water and sitting just 25 points away from the finish line, Portville appeared to be the similarly unstoppable unit they had reflected all season. With work at the line, work at the net and work in the middle all coming together seamlessly, they out-worked the Cardinals as they marched towards another Blue Patch.
An initial scoring stretch gave them breathing room before a final push gave them the title at 25-15. Another year, another Panther banner.
Maiolo ended with a team-high 16 kills to go with her 16 digs and two aces, while Emily Scanlon came away with 11 kills and one block. Ava Scanlon had 10 kills and 14 digs, followed by Marissa Carls with 45 assists and 10 digs.
After defending their Sectional streak, Portville now moves to protect their other throne. On Tuesday, the five-time defending New York Public High School Athletic Association (NYPHSAA) state champions will start their push back to the next title stage with a sub-regional match against Clarence on Tuesday.
(This game was covered remotely.)
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