High School Volleyball

Below is the postgame interview with Smithtown East's Delia Phillips and Maggie Engellenner following Saturday's win over Massapequa in the Class AA LI Championship/southeast regional.

Talk about the emotions of winning a Long Island championship.

Maggie: I was saying, we’ve come so far. I mean, our first year on the team, we made it to the county championship game and lost in a really...

It was an evening of news, both good and bad, for Smithtown East. 

The good? They defeated Ward Melville in five sets, defeating the team that eliminated them from the playoffs the past two years.

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 First off, a correction on what appeared in the print edition of the girls volleyball preview (http://www.newsday.com/sports/high-school/volleyball/girls-volleyball-preview-1.3165475).

Holy Trinity, not Chaminade, is a "team to watch." Obviously, Chaminade is an all-boys school, thus does not field a girls volleyball team. My apologies to the Trinity team for my temporary mental...

Without further adieu, here are the team rankings, 11-15, that will appear in tomorrow's edition of Gregg Sarra's "Big 10." I cannot include the Top-10 quite yet, since you know, I can't give everything away for free.

Note 1: these rankings are based of the first few days of regular season play (not including tonight's games) and pre-season rankings, thus are subject to dramatic...

1. Half Hollow Hills (18-1): They dominated Long Island volleyball all season,  losing only  to an excellent McQuaid Jesuit team in the Division I state finals. Led by seniors James Barone, Cody Lau, Chris Kaimis, Mike DeGrazia and Remy Janco, the Thundercolts were a well-oiled machine that took the Suffolk title for a third straight time and were never even pushed five sets...

So, you may have noticed that the big boys volleyball showdown - Half Hollow Hills versus Smithtown East - had to be trimmed down due to space. It's still short, but here's the full write up. Not mentioned in the story: When Hills dresses the way they do to games, they totally look like Cobra Kai. If you are, indeed, older than a high school student, you'll likely know Cobra Kai was the terrifying,...

OK, so little more needs to be said than this: The best team in League I (Hills) takes on the best of League II (East) tonight in a battle of undefeated teams to determine the Division I champ and Suffolk's representative in the Regional (Long Island) finals. Game starts at 7:00 at Longwood.

The great thing about this match is that it features premier players on both ends of...

So, in the Division I playoffs, we are two wins away from seeing an undefeated showdown between Half Hollow HIlls and Smithtown East for the Suffolk title.

Hills hosts Northport, while East draws Lindenhurst in the semifinals match-up.

Northport, after a middle-of-the-pack finish in '09, returned most of its starting line-up, and has lived up to the lofty pre-season expectations. Matt...

Class AA (14-team bracket)

Here are your top eight seeds:

1. Lindenhurst

2. Ward Melville

3. Smithtown East

4. Connetquot

5. West Islip

6. Copiague

7. Northport

8. Smithtown West

Finals: I like Ward Melville, led Haley Blunt, Emily Astarita and Alexa Stonish, to beat Lindenhurst.  

Class A (nine-team bracket)

Here are your...

Division I

1. Half Hollow Hills

2. Smithtown East

3. Lindenhurst

4. Northport

5. Commack

6. Bay Shore

7. Sachem North

8. Smithtown West

Semifinal Picks: Smithtown East over Bay Shore and Hills over Northport

Finals: Hills over Smithtown East

Division II

1. Eastport-South Manor

2. Shoreham-Wading River

3. ...