By Joseph Staszewski
Francis Lewis moved a step closer to regaining its throne.
The Patriots won three straight PSAL Class A volleyball titles from 2008-10 and claimed its last Queens A East crown in 2011. Since then Lewis has watched rivals Benjamin Cardozo and Bayside replace them at the top of the standings. This year’s group of Patriots made it their goal before the season to not let that happen again.
“This group of seniors, they have never won the division,” Lewis coach Arnie Rosenbaum said. “They have gone far in the playoffs, but they haven’t won the division championship.”
His team is in prime position to do so this year, after a 25-20, 25-8 victory over Cardozo on Tuesday at Bayside. Francis Lewis, which also has a 2-0 win over Bayside, are alone atop the division with half of the season complete.
“This is probably the best we’ve done so far in the four years that I have been playing here,” senior Joelle Desrosiers said.
The middle hitter has been the Patriots’ most consistent player, but the team is without a true star. It wins with the type of balance, poise and efficiency it showed against Cardozo (2-2). Desrosiers, Alisha Matthews, Danna Diez, Sabrina Birk and Felica Lopez were all factors at the net. Libero Kathleen Huang had a fine day in the back row with six digs, to go along with three aces and 12 service points.
“We do spread it around,” Rosenbaum said.
The coach was impressed that once his team grabbed a 12-7 lead in the first set, it never relinquished it. Cardozo pulled as close as 15-13 and 20-18 once setter Vanessa Velandia found her rhythm with hitters Brittany Wang and Christine Wu. Unlike earlier in the season, Lewis (4-0) kept its composure and watched Cardozo hurt itself with errors. Lewis raised its level of play in the second set.
“The second set, we were able to get it together really well,” Desrosiers said. “We cut down on a lot of our mistakes. We all did what we were supposed to do.”
Cardozo coach Dan Scarola saw his young team, which has five new starters, play well in spurts. When it connected on passes and fed its hitters, it outplayed Lewis for a string of points, but couldn’t do it consistently. Five first-set service errors didn’t help his club’s cause.
The Judges are coming off a 2-1 loss to Bayside (3-1) where they won the first set and watched the Commodores rally to win. Scarola though some of that may have carried over.
“When we were able to run a play, we were able to put the ball down,” Scarola said. “We took some good swings. If we couldn’t get the pass up we weren’t an offense and that was it.”
While Cardozo will look to regain its footing after two straight losses, Lewis plans to continue its march to a division title. Doing so would mean plenty to this group.
“It would be really awesome,” Huang said. “I feel like we are working really hard this year so we could make that happen.”
