The Saugerties Sawyers won the third set to cut the Wallkill Panthers’ lead in half.
That’s when the Panthers decided they were done.

In response, they dominated the fourth set, holding the top-seeded Sawyers to single digits and won the Section 9 Class AA championship with a 3-1 win on Saturday at Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh.

“This feels amazing,” said Isabella Martinez, one of the Panthers three captains. “It’s so good to come on top and we really fought for this. We worked for this ever since preseason started, and it’s an amazing feeling.”

The Panthers have been working toward this for longer than that, ever since their season ended in the Section 9 Class A finals with a loss to the Port Jervis Raiders. That loss was avenged on Thursday when the Panthers wept the Raiders right out of the playoffs with a 3-0 victory in the semifinals. They opened the tournament on Nov. 3 with a 3-0 win over the Monticello Panthers.

“This is pretty amazing because we went to the finals last year and lost to Port,” Ava O’Flaherty said. “We beat them on Thursday, which felt really great. And now winning this is amazing.”

The Panthers and Sawyers had previously met twice during the regular season in Mid Hudson Athletic League Division I play. The Panthers beat the Sawyers, 3-1, on Sept. 10 in Wallkill, while the Sawyers took the Sept. 29 meetup in Saugerties, 3-0.

The Panthers took the first two sets, 25-16, 25-20. The win in the second set the Panthers up for their victory. The Panthers broke a 14-14 tie with Martinez at the service line. She had two aces during a five-point service run that gave the Panthers a 19-14 lead.

The Sawyers closed the gap to 20-19, but a block by LaRocco gave the Panthers a two-point lead and Olivia Rodriguez’s ended the second set with an ace, giving Wallkill a 2-0 lead.

“That was important because I feel like that really showed what the outcome of the game was going to be, and how strong we were,” LaRocco said.

The Panthers didn’t appear very strong in the third set as the Sawyers built a 15-8 lead. The Panthers rallied back to tie the set twice.

However, Saugerties’ Madelyn Dragula tipped the ball over the net to give the Sawyers, the lead for good, as they won the set 25-21.
Even though they lost that set, they showed they could recover.

“That shows how determined they are,” Wallkill coach Julie Michella said. “How much they wanted it and how hard they worked to get those this moment in the season.”

The strength returned in the fourth set as the Panthers dominated the Sawyers, 25-7 to claim the title.

“(We wanted) to crush them and to really start out strong,” Martinez said. “No let up, foot on the pedal. Don’t let past mistakes affect us. It’s a new set.”

The Panthers now have at least three more sets as they travel to John Jay-Cross River High School on Wednesday to face the Section 1 champion Rye or Somers.

“We want to keep pushing and see how far we can go,” Martinez said. “We just want to keep growing as a team and keep getting better in practice every day.”