Ichabod Crane girls volleyball players receive award | hudsonvalley360.com

His second regional appearance with the Riders, which followed his second Section 2 Class B title as coach, ended with a five-set loss to Section 1 champion Blind Brook, which won the Class B state title on Sunday.

“Winning and losing is not the most important thing at the end of the season,” Vooris said. “It’s: ‘Did you do your best? Have we given everything we have? Are we proud of the way we represent ourselves, our school, our family, our community?” And the answer is: yes, it was a great season.”

The Riders made it to regionals two years ago, falling to Section 3’s Westhill in three sets. This season, Ichabod Crane finished 19-4 and had five players honored by the Colonial Council, with senior hitter Ally Flint winning Offensive Player of the Year after leading the team with 335 kills and a team second of 321 digs. Vooris thinks she exemplifies the best of Ichabod Crane volleyball.

“She’s just so dynamic, and it’s not just this past year, it’s the growth she’s shown in the four years she’s been a varsity athlete, she’s had a great career,” he said. “Not only that, she’s a good teammate, she does well in the classroom, and that’s what our volleyball program strives for, not just excellence on the court, but overall excellence and being good people.”

The Colonial Council all-conference first team featured senior setter Angie O’Leary, the team’s assists leader (477) and aces leader (115), who credits Vooris for elevating her teammates on the court.

“She’s done a great job of differentiating her sets for the hitters we have and what helps them be successful,” he said. “That’s a senior leadership thing, where you know your teammates and what needs to be done to help other people be successful.”

The Riders also had two players on the all-conference second team, senior hitter Emma Holmberg and sophomore Kayte Flint, sister of Ally Flint. Vooris thinks Holmberg earned a spot on the first team because of her presence on the front line, which led to a team-second 234 kills, and her composure, which kept the Riders in a postseason run that included comebacks in the first set in both the section semi-finals. and sub-regional rounds.

“She was the main representative of vocal leadership on our team,” he said. “When things started to get a little rocky for us, she was the vocal leader who brought everything back together.”

As for the Riders’ other sophomore teammate, while Vooris thinks Kayte will miss her sister, he believes the sophomore’s comfort and service on the field will make her a focus of the program going forward, after a year in which she led the team with 343 digs.

“She plays way beyond her age,” he said. “She’s a sophomore, but she plays like she’s already a senior, but we still have two years where Kayte Flint is one of our favorite players.”

The other Ichabod Crane player to receive conference recognition was Rylee Dunn, a senior middle blocker and the team’s block leader (48), who Vooris credited along with sophomore middle Torri Cutler for taking the pressure off the Riders hitters in front of the net by taking care of opposing blockers.

“(They) deserve kudos for the continued effort they get because they don’t always get the recognition for the high kill rate or the high block count, but what they do was so crucial to the success of our team,” he said .

Vooris also recognized senior Abby McCagg, who will continue her volleyball career at Hudson Valley Community College next year.

“She’s a kid that plays every practice and every game and is so consistent and such a good teammate,” he said. “There are a lot of girls on our team who look at Abby and say, ‘She’s one of my best friends.’”

Next year’s Riders will look very different, with seven seniors – half the team – graduating in June. With Ichabod Crane having reached each of the Section 2 matches in the past three years, winning them twice, Vooris believes this year’s result against Blind Brook on November 16 will provide some energy for 2025.

“Knowing that we played competitively, (that) we could have won, we could have won that game, and then seeing the team that beat us win, it’s like, ‘Ah, that could have been us,’” he said . “For some of our underclassmen, our sophomores, that was a little bit of an incentive, so hopefully that’s motivation for some of the girls for next year.