Faith Thurmond of Seymour High spikes the ball past Emily Brouilette of Woodland High defends during the NVL volleyball semifinals against Seymour at Naugatuck High in Naugatuck Tuesday.
Steven Valenti Republican-American
BY KYLE BRENNAN
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
The Torrington High volleyball team won every Naugatuck Valley League match it played this season. Seymour won all but one — an early-season matchup with the Red Raiders.
Now, the Wildcats will get a chance for revenge and the Raiders will have an opportunity to complete an unblemished NVL run with a league championship.
No. 1-seeded Torrington (21-1) will face No. 2 Seymour (20-1) tonight at 7 at Woodland High for the NVL title. The Wildcats seek their fifth crown in the last nine seasons; the Red Raiders haven’t won the championship since 2004.
In their only regular-season meeting, Torrington earned a 3-1 win over the ‘Cats on Sept. 23 in Seymour. The Red Raiders dropped the first game, 25-17, before sweeping the final three, 25-22, 25-9 and 25-23.
But that was more than a month ago. Seymour hasn’t lost since, and the Red Raiders have dropped only a five-game match against nonconference foe Granby.
“It’s going to be crazy — lots of emotions everywhere,” said Seymour’s Sam Torres, who tallied a semifinal-high 17 kills in Tuesday’s 3-2 win over Woodland. “We’ve progressed so much, they’ve progressed so much. It’s going to be a good match.”
Torres is one of the front-line leaders for Seymour. She’s joined by Faith Thurmond, who led the ‘Cats with 14 kills and five blocks in the first meeting with Torrington, and Caty Ragaini, who put down the match-winning kill Tuesday.
After the Red Raiders earned a 3-1 win over Naugatuck in Tuesday’s semifinals, Torrington coach Christine Gamari said her team has to be the one to bring the heat at Seymour and limit the big hitters’ opportunities.
“They have some talented volleyball players. We have some talented volleyball players,” Gamari said. “We’re just going to be aggressive and push at them and dictate the pace of the game.”
Though the Wildcats may be the underdogs based on the regular-season outcome, Seymour coach Cathy Federowicz has been in more than a few of these tournament finals and knows from experience that prior meetings don’t always give a good indication as to which team will win.
“Championships come down to who comes that day to play,” Federowicz said. “We’ve been in ones when we weren’t the better team, but we won. We’ve been on the other side, too. It all comes down to who shows up and plays the best.”
Torrington’s Carissa Carbone, the team’s emotional leader and the league’s standout player this season, echoed that sentiment after her 13-kill, 13-dig effort in the semifinals.
“It’s going to be a good match,” said Carbone, who tallied five kills and 14 digs against Seymour in the regular season. “The winner’s going to be whoever comes to play.”