Blocking hard-hit volleyballs is a big part of Sofia Knudsen’s job. It’s not easy. Sometimes she finds it can be downright scary putting herself in harm’s way.
“I usually close my eyes, but I try not to do that,” she said.
At the same time, Knudsen may have opened some eyes Friday with the way she played in top-seeded Mattituck’s Suffolk County Class C semifinal against No. 4 Pierson/Bridgehampton. The junior middle hitter was a disruptive force for the Tuckers, who turned in a high-quality performance for a 25-14, 25-17, 25-11 victory at Cutchogue East Elementary School.
It could have been the final match for Frank Massa. He said he will step down as Mattituck’s head coach after this season, ending a 36-year run. But Massa has at least one more match ahead of him.
Mattituck (14-2), the League VIII champion and defending Long Island Class C champion, will face No. 2 Port Jefferson (15-3) in the county final Nov. 7 at Hauppauge High School. The teams had beaten each other once in four sets during the regular season, with the home team winning both times.
Asked if this was Mattituck’s best match this season, Massa said, “Close to it.”
He said the way the team played was “very encouraging. I said the good news is that we won and we played real well. The bad news is that we’re gonna have to continue that type of play for the next couple of weeks.”
Mattituck played confidently and consistently from start to finish. At no point in the match did Pierson (8-7) hold a lead.
“That’s OK with me,” Massa said. “We never let them get a run on us or anything like that, so that definitely helped us out.”
As did Abby Woods, who led the way with 15 kills. Sage Foster put away 10 kills and Carolyn Conroy supplied 24 assists. Jolin Chen’s passing was accurate (the libero also went 16-for-16 from the service line).
“One of the things that I really liked is that we scored from a multitude of different positions,” Massa said. “It wasn’t just a one player, you know, 35 kills type of situation. We were scoring points with our middles, our outsides. I was really pleased with that. And I thought our setter’s work was incredible.”
Grace Flanagan had 11 kills and Ashley Weatherwax added 15 assists for Pierson.
Mattituck played a clean match, with only four hitting errors and two passing errors.
Whenever Pierson scored a point to gain the serve, it seemed Mattituck would win the serve back on the next point. The number of points Pierson scored on its serves in the three sets were, in order, four, five and two.
“They didn’t give away too much,” Massa said of his players. “They served tough [91.8%, nine aces]. Our passing was very good and our setting was outstanding.”
Massa said Knudsen (six kills, five blocks) played her best match of the season.
“She did exactly what she needed to do at the net, especially on shanked balls from the other side,” he said. “I counted seven points that she made that were nice, easy points for us on shanked passes from the other side. She goes up two hands, dishes it straight down into the ground where nobody is and definitely keeps the momentum going in our direction.”
Knudsen said, “I was nervous, but I feel like as a team, like if we work our hardest, we can get whatever we want to achieve done.”
Mattituck had defeated Pierson twice during the regular season, but that was of little comfort to Foster. The senior outside hitter knows that nothing can be taken for granted in the playoffs. Foster recalled her freshman season in which Mattituck defeated the Whalers twice during the regular season, only to lose a five-set thriller to them in the county final. “Anything can happen,” she said.
Now the Tuckers are returning to the county final stage.
“It’s what everybody dreams of playing in, right?” Massa said. “You work the whole season to have an opportunity to play in that game and we put ourselves in a good situation and we ended up winning today, so we have that opportunity, and I hope the girls make the most of it.”