Christy Herring felt the need to pull Yaira Diaz aside. The Christ the King coach was watching her senior captain struggle with her hitting, too often finding the net instead of the floor.
“I told her you have to believe in you,” said Herring, who is in her second season. “I can only give you so much. This is about coming from within you. If it doesn’t come from within you it’s not going to come.”
Diaz’s confidence arrived at just the right time. The outside hitter went on a 9-0 service run, including four aces, during a string of 10 straight Royals points in the deciding fourth set. Later she would post consecutive aces to give No.2- seeded Christ the King a 25-20, 28-26, 18-25, 25-20 win over No. 1 and host St. John’s Prep in the first-ever CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens Division II girls volleyball final. The teams split two regular-season meetings. The Middle Village, Queens school took home the varsity and JV titles.
“I just remembered that we worked so hard during the entire season to get here,” Diaz said. “Even though I was down I just got my energy back because I saw it in the girls. We believe in each other.”
Her service run gave the Royals (11-1) a 15-11 lead after St. John’s Prep (10-2) jumped out quickly for the third straight set. The Red Storm would pull within 18-17 on a perfectly place kill down the line by star Maria Barbarino and 21-20 when Diaz hit into a block by Danielle Overton and Jessica Heleno. Well-timed kills from CK middle Christina Juran set up by Erica Eddy and Diaz’s serving put the match away. Jackie Dolphin was superb digging from the back.
“We wanted to win this so bad that we just put everything we had into it,” Juran said.
The ever-improving junior, who has worked on her ball placement and aggressiveness, was a key cog behind another Royals comeback in the momentum-swinging second set. St. John’s Prep grabbed a 17-11 lead on a quick 4-0 run. It appeared the Red Storm would survive the Royals’ surge, but a tip over the net by Bruna Brandao right in front of the referee stand was ruled out to pull CK with 23-21 instead of putting SJP a point away from a win. Juran followed with a kill and later had three in a row to lock up the set and a 2-0 lead.
“She has a fire in her,” said Herring of Juran who played varsity as a sophomore. “She has something that a lot of these girls don’t have. It’s natural for her.”
St. John’s Prep felt it would have been able to complete the comeback had it won the fourth set. It struggled at times to finish it swings and didn’t take advantage of key service opportunities. Barbarino starred in the third set win. She had three kills, including one into a Juran block attempt, during a string of five straight points. Too many times the Red Storm couldn’t regain momentum after quick starts.
“That’s kind of happened to us all year, we have gotten the lead and its come back, but we have been able to prevail,” SJP coach Jenn Cocchi said. “Unfortunately this time we weren’t able to.”
The title was a big step forward for a CK program that used to be one of the best in the city in the 1990s and early 2000s. Herring, who graduated in 1996 and her JV coach Theresa Barretta, both played for the Royals during that era. CK will be the top seed from Brooklyn/Queens and SJP will be No. 2 when the CHSAA Class A state playoffs open on Nov. 13 at Cardinal Spellman.
“We were looking to grow and that’s exactly what we did,” Herring said. …“They grew and they listened and they did exactly what I asked from them.”