Ledyard continues to excel in Connecticut girls volleyball

After winning its first state volleyball championship last year in its first appearance in a CIAC final, Ledyard (Conn.) moved up in class from M to L for the 2013 season.

It hasn't affected the Colonels' performance yet. Being the smallest Class L school - seven players over the limit - Ledyard still ran off a regular-season record of 19-1, plus wins in the quarterfinals and semifinals of the Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament.

On Thursday night, Ledyard improved to 22-1 by winning the ECC playoff final against Woodstock, avenging its only loss of the season with a 3-2 triumph.

"(The move up) turned out really good because I think we're a Top 10 team in the state," said first-year head coach Rich Duwelius, who took over for Shirley Karkow.

"We won the M tournament last year and we have seven of our top players back. We had mainly sophomores and juniors last year so that gave us an advantage in the early going. Now, the rest of the ECC is catching up as the season goes along."

Duwelius said his squad has no one outstanding player that it always looks to, but thrives on talent across the board.

"Our team is a balanced team," Duwelius said. "We rely on a lot of different players. You can look at our stats and you can see how the attacking distribution is. A lot of the teams I've seen have one, two, three good players. I think we have at least six. We don't have to cover for anybody."

Ledyard has two big middle blockers in 6-foot-4 senior Hannah Hutchins (32 blocks, 90 kills through the regular season) and 6-3 junior Madison Canestrari (48 blocks, 112 kills).

"They both hit; they're not just out there to block," said Duwelius of Hutchins (.309 hitting efficiency) and Canestrari (.403). "They give teams a hard time because they're not used to seeing that much height in the middle, plus girls who can actually play volleyball."

The left-side hitter, 6-2 junior Michelle Klinikowski (185 kills, 25 blocks, 25 aces), a middle hitter last year, is the Colonels' best all-around player, Duwelius said.

"This year she was adjusting to hitting those high sets (on the outside), and it took her a while. It's much different," Duwelius said. "Her hitting from the left side has really improved as the year has gone along. She's doing much better in reducing her errors. She just hammers the ball, hardest hitter I've seen in the state."

The other left-side hitter is senior Arianna Fustini (115 kills, 25 aces) and the opposite is senior Alyssa Gregory (66 kills, 86 digs, 55 aces).

"Fustini is more an all-around player, passes, serves, defense, does everything. Gregory is basically serving, passing, hits some right side," Duwelius said.

Duwelius has used two setters all season in senior Brianna Riley (153 assists) and junior Jennifer Nohara (272 assists), but settled on Nohara for the postseason.

"They were really close at the beginning of the year and I didn't feel it was right to pick one based on two weeks of practice," Duwelius said. "So I said 'We'll do what we did last year and use both of them' and we kept winning and it's hard to bench somebody when you're undefeated. Now that we're going into (the postseason) we need to stop running setters in and out and pick one."

Duwelius' libero, junior Mariah Abstetar (431 digs, 59 aces), is a first-year Ledyard player who goes to a magnet school in Groton.

Class L will present a challenge for Ledyard in the CIAC tournament, with three teams currently undefeated: RHAM, Farmington and Joel Barlow; and last year's champion in Class L, Bristol Eastern, is back as well at 16-2.

"I stepped into a nice situation here," said Duwelius, a former Ohio State and national team player who took over for Karkow when she moved out of state.

"It's nice coming in and having players who know how to play and are confident and fired up about doing it again. I had to tell them 'Look, we're moving up from medium to large. We're going to be playing better teams this year. We can't coast, we need to get on this.

"We have good players who are motivated. What more can you ask for? I think we'll be just as strong if not stronger next year (eight players coming back). I see three undefeated teams at the top (of Class L) and none have played each other. I've seen RHAM and they have no weaknesses. It's a matter of pulling it together and see if we can get a run going."

Paul Rosano, the former assistant sport editor of The Hartford Courant and sports editor of The New Haven Register, is a MaxPreps contributor. He may be reached at pjrosano@cox.net.