Something happened to the Cicero-North Syracuse boys volleyball team at the end of September that hadn't happened in years: The Northstars lost two league matches on two days in a row. The first was to Fayetteville-Manlius and the second to Jamesville-DeWitt.
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Since then, the Northstars had won four league matches in a row before facing longtime rival Liverpool on Monday.
"Every day since our back-to-back losses has been a steppingstone to sectionals (including) this entire weekend, starting on Friday versus Fayetteville-Manlius, to our loss to Penfield, to our victory over Shenendehowa," said Cicero-North Syracuse coach Mike Lucia.
The Northstars used that momentum on Monday for a 3-1 victory over Liverpool.
"We felt bad about Elliott (DeForge) tweaking his ankle in set one, as that was a big loss for them, but just like we have done since our loss to J-D, the key was decreasing our error rate and making Liverpool earn as many points as we could have," said Lucia. "For example, we missed 18 less serves than when we went to their place. Gabe (LaRobardiere), Reece (Congel) and Robbie (Siechen) really lead the team offensively and we simply made them earn everything." After dropping the second set to Liverpool, 28-26, C-NS rallied to win the next two sets, 25-23 and 25-22.
"We had a sitdown after the loss to J-D and just changed our mindset about how we went about playing the game," added Lucia. "We wanted to force teams to beat us more, keep the ball in play, and decrease our error rate even if that means taking some steam off of our hits and serves."
The Northstars have two league matches, against Central Square and Oswego, and a non-leaguer against Canisius before sectional play begins.
But Lucia's message to his team after Monday's win was this, "To now beat a great Liverpool team has shown to this team that if you combine their incredible heart with a high level of execution, we can play with anyone."
