Class C boys volleyball: Top-seeded Granby sweeps Ware, captures first-ever WMass title (PHOTOS)
Published: 05-30-2024 5:39 PM |
CHICOPEE — All the momentum was against the No. 1 Granby boys volleyball team in the third set of Saturday’s Western Mass. Class C championship match with No. 2 Ware.
The Rams had breezed through the first two sets, but they faced a 24-21 deficit in the third — and Ware’s fans were fired up. For a team littered with underclassmen, it wouldn’t have been a shock if they rolled over and turned their attention to a fourth set.
But Granby buckled down when sophomore Jake Gagnon stepped behind the service line.
His rocket of a serve helped the Rams win the next three points to tie it at 24, and after the next five points played out 3-2 in Granby’s favor, the top-seeded side found themselves at championship point.
Granby forced Ware into a free ball, which was sent to the lap of Braedan Gallagher. The sophomore bumped it over to his classmate Gagnon, who perfectly set senior captain Michael Swanigan on the outside.
In one swift motion, he jumped high to meet the ball at its peak and let loose a fierce swing into Ware’s front line. It hit a pair of hands on the other side of the net and fell to the court. Swanigan has put down over 700 kills in his career, but none bigger than that — giving Granby a 3-0 win (25-19, 25-16, 28-26) to claim its first-ever Western Mass. title in just its third year as a program.
“It means a lot getting this done early in the program’s history,” Swanigan said. “We’ve been working hard at it, because over Covid, we weren’t able to play inside, so we were on the beach courts kind of just looking forward to it since then. Each year we’ve been inching closer toward it and today we got it done.”
Gagnon’s stellar serving (six aces) helped the Rams climb back in the third set, and it was his serving all morning long that Ware couldn’t quite solve.
Article continues after...
Yesterday's Most Read Articles
“After I got a few serves in and we got a few points, that gap started to fill in and I think we definitely knew we had a good chance to win,” he said. “We finished pretty strong in that third set.”
His teammates admitted they were a bit doubtful of a comeback facing three consecutive set points, and they were even already thinking ahead about a potential fourth set.
But then it was No. 7’s turn to serve, and everything changed.
“I wouldn’t have minded a fourth set, and there was some doubt seeing that score gap, but once Jake got on the service line, I had no doubt he would handle business,” Swanigan said.
Swanigan struck for a match-high 16 kills and added six assists. Gagnon brought out his do-it-all toolkit to post a line of 10 kills, 18 assists, six aces and four digs, while Gallagher chipped in with six kills.
The three of them have led Granby all year long, and that’s expected considering they play throughout the year outside of the spring high school season.
“It was our goal from the beginning, honestly,” Chad Gagnon said. “We knew we had a super strong team, having three guys who play year-round is a huge benefit. The goal all year was to win this and see how much of a push in the state tournament we can make.”
The first two sets were near-carbon copies of each other, with both playing out to a 14-14 tie at one point. A 7-2 run in the first and a 9-1 in the second created plenty of separation for the eventual champs to coast to victories.
Granby carried that steam into the third with a 6-1 spurt to begin the frame (spearheaded by two Gagnon aces), but Ware wouldn’t go away easy as it eventually built the aforementioned 24-21 advantage that the Rams erased to claim the championship.