photo by Andrew Giermak

Nansemond River’s Cheynne Maupin sends a shot over the net during the first set of Monday evening’s Southeastern District volleyball match at Nansemond River. The Warriors (16-4, 14-4) defeated Hickory in four sets to clinch sole possession of second place in the district heading into next week’s district tournament.

Warriors win in home finale

By Andrew Giermak (Contact) | Suffolk News-Herald

Published Monday, October 26, 2009

Nansemond River’s boys volleyball team clinched sole possession of second place in the Southeastern District on the last night of the regular season Tuesday against visiting Hickory, 25-18, 25-15, 25-27, 25-17.

On Senior Night for the Warriors, six seniors were honored before the match. Cheynne Maupin, Kyle Briesemeister, Kerrington Harris, A.J. Steward, Malcolm Coleman and Eric Eley were honored and made up the night’s starting lineup for head coach Vincent Pisani.

Even with a starting six that was abnormal, the Warriors had no problems in opening up an 8-2 lead in the first set. Kills and steady defense came from everywhere on the court for the Warriors. Hickory rallied a little in the final points of the set to make it a closer margin. Briesemeister led the attack with four kills in the first set. Josh Howard had six assists.

The Warriors took an 11-2 lead to open the second set and five different Warriors had kills in that opening flurry. Harris and Maupin wound up with three kills each in the set.

As Pisani’s done all season whenever his side’s been up two-sets-to-none, he started his reserves in the third set. With Hickory up 15-6, Pisani started subbing his first string back into the match and the Warriors rallied right away.

NR got within 18-17 with an ace by Hayden Champigny and within 19-18 Hawks on a kill by Maupin. Hickory stretched its lead back to 23-20, but NR fought back again.

A kill by Champigny, back-to-back hitting errors by the Hawks, then another Champigny spike gave the Warriors the lead and a match point. A net violation on NR gave the point to Hickory. Hickory served into the net to give NR another match point, but a Hickory block made it 25-25. Hickory took the set two points later with another block.

The Warriors finished the match in easy fashion in set four. The Warriors scored the first six points in the set and led by a wide margin the rest of the way. Harris did a little of everything in the set, getting three assists, two kills, two aces and a block.

“It was good to get this one, because Hickory won the first time we played,” said Pisani.

“We’re hitting our stride I think. Our timing is right there. At the beginning of the year, we thought we were sort of close, but now we’re really close.”

Howard finished with 22 assists. Maupin had nine kills. Briesemeister and Champigny had eight kills each. Harris finished with eight assists and seven kills.

NR (16-4, 14-4) moves on into the Southeastern District Tournament. The first round, the semifinal round, of the tournament is set for Wednesday, Nov. 4 at Oscar Smith.

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