Hampton Bays Girls Volleyball Team Advances to First Suffolk County Final Since 2009

With a 3-0 sweep of No. 2 Elwood-John Glenn on the road Tuesday — 25-13, 25-15, 25-17 — the Hampton Bays girls volleyball team punched its ticket to the Suffolk County Class B championship game for the first time since 2009.

The No.3-seeded Baymen (14-4) will face No. 1 Bayport-Blue Point (11-2) in the finals Tuesday, November 8, at Hauppauge High School at 7:30 p.m.

“This is surreal. It’s like a dream. I’m speechless,” senior setter Brianna Quiros said. “It does not feel real whatsoever, but this is the best feeling in the world.”

This Hampton Bays team came out guns blazing, going on an 12-2 run to start the first set. Sophomore middle blocker Asha Pensa-Johnson (18 kills, four blocks) racked up four kills and two solo blocks over that span to help the Baymen make a statement.

“We focused on how their hitters tipped and where they were on the court, so we know how to attack them,” the sophomore said. “We did it, and we did it as a team. This feels amazing. We worked so hard for this.”

Head coach Andy Fotopoulos said the main focus for his athletes was limiting their own errors. Hampton Bays had come away with a 3-0 win over John Glenn earlier in the season, but during the two team’s last meeting the Baymen fell to the Knights in five sets.

“Last time we made a lot of serving and hitting errors, so we cleaned things up,” the coach said. “I liked our energy and our consistency.”

Spirit was also key. Hampton Bays had two double-hit violations and a kill attempt go out of bounds to hand John Glenn its first lead of the match in the second set, and the Knights used an ace and another Baymen error to take a 12-9 advantage that forced Fotopoulos to call timeout. The visiting crowd roared as the team returned to the court, and back-to-back kills by junior middle blocker Nellie Nicolova (five kills), a kill by junior outside hitter Tania Quiros (nine kills, one ace) and an ace by senior libero Sophia Corredor (15 digs, two aces) helped Hampton Bays regain the lead.

“It all came down to the energy of the team and how we came together and supported each other,” Corredor said. “When we lost in that fifth set it was really tight to begin with, so it came down to our mentality. This is a team we always thought was hard to beat, but after our first win against them, we knew we were capable of doing of this, and we had hope.”

Brianna Quiros (25 assists) agreed that the mental aspect of the match was the biggest hurdle.

“We can tend to get in our heads and get down on ourselves, so we wanted to keep the energy up and show them what we can do. And the crowd played a major part in that,” she said, thanking the district for getting a bus to bring the junior varsity team to the match for additional support. “They hyped us up. It gave us this drive. It’s been a very long time coming for us to get here, so this is huge for our school. We wanted to win. We came here to win.”

Similar to the second set, the Knights clawed their way back to take a 10-9 lead in the third, but a Tania Quiros tip, a Pensa-Johnson dump, two Pensa-Johnson kills and a Quiros ace helped the Baymen bounce back. A Pensa-Johnson-Brianna Quiros block, Pensa-Johnson tip and back-to-back kills by Pensa-Johnson and senior outside hitter Lilly Patek capped off an 8-3 run by Hampton Bays to take a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.

“I think that us playing as one rather than six different players on the court really led us to our win,” Tania Quiros said. “We played a lot smarter, and on top of that, we walked into the John Glenn gym with the mindset that we’ve come such a long way and we’re not one yet. With the way everyone is performing and putting in the same amount of effort, it’s easy to tell that everyone wants the same thing.”

The outside hitter said she’s also proud to be able to help the seniors make it to the championship round in their final season. The upperclassmen said the opportunity means everything.

“This is crazy. For senior year, this is the best thing that could happen,” Patek said. “I can’t wait to play the next game. I’m so excited. We’ve never had an opportunity like this.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” Corredor added. “We learned a lot this season. We knew we had a lot of skill, it was just bringing it all together.”

Fotopoulos said he is beyond thrilled for his athletes.

“You take a look at the banners in this John Glenn gym — county, Long Island and state championships — this is a big win for the girls,” he said. “We’ve only had 10 girls on the team all year, and they’ve showed up and they worked hard and they’ve believed in themselves. They’ve worked so hard this year, and I’m confident that we can beat any team that comes our way.”