East girls volleyball finishes strong
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

Williamsville East's varsity girls volleyball team sure likes to make winning matches the hard way.

East went 2-1 last week and lost the first game of both victories. The Lady Flames defeated Iroquois, 23-25, 25-21, 25-20, 25-23, on Sept. 11 then beat West Seneca East, 24-26, 25-17, 25-10, 25-17, last Wednesday.

On Friday, East lost the first game against Lake Shore and took the Section VI Class A runner up to five games before falling 8-25, 25-23, 18-25, 25-18, 23-25.

"Lake Shore has one really special girl in Maureen Tilert," said East head coach Scott Wright. "We were up 8-7 in the first game and she served 17 straight points."

East rebounded with a fourth place finish at last Saturday's Frontier Invitational. It's East's highest finish at the tournament.

East won its pool and beat Frontier, 30-28, in the quarterfinals 30-28, and lost to Eden, 14-25, 17-25, in the semifinals. Eden went on to lose in the finals to Lancaster, 22-25, 24-26.

East's Mary McDaniel was named to the all-tournament team.

East played most of the week without senior Michelle Brent, who sprained a thumb in the first game against West Seneca East.

"Some teams take an injury to one of their better players and turn into a negative, especially after we lost game one but they came back really strong and played some of the best team volleyball that we've played in a while," said Wright.

Wright noted strong performances for the entire week by Kaitlin Roseti, Courtney Rung, Jessica Hernandez, Meghan Scheidemann and Karen Kingsley.

East (2-2, 2-1) plays at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Williamsville South.

e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com