Phil Fisher’s heart was broken during no-cut tryouts a year and a half ago. Clarey Hung, a swimmer at Stuyvesant, came out for the coach’s girls volleyball team, but when the school year started last September, she stuck with swimming.
“I got so excited about seeing her as a junior,” Fisher said. “I already had her figured as a libero [last year]. I knew what she could do.”
Hung came back to volleyball in August and hung around this time. The senior has solidified the defense for a Stuyvesant team that would have been searching for a libero. The seventh-ranked Vixens beat No. 10 Newcomers, 25-15, 25-14, in the PSAL Class A girls volleyball second round Monday night in Downtown Manhattan. Hung, who had three digs, was as steady as ever. She has made defense a strength for Stuy (14-0).
“She saved our season,” Fisher said.
That season will continue Wednesday with a quarterfinals matchup against No. 2 Cardozo, which knocked off No. 18 Grover Cleveland in the second round Monday. Hung was not one of the stars of Stuyvesant’s powerhouse girls swimming team, which competes in the PSAL city championship meet next week, but she has made all the difference for the girls volleyball squad.
“It’s my last year, so I just decided to try something new and have fun with it,” Hung said.
The Vixens started off slowly, falling behind 7-2 in the first set to Newcomers (8-4) after a kill by Erglina Aba. But a 5-0 service run by Morgan Higgins gave Stuyvesant a lead it would not relinquish and Dot Weldon put together a 7-0 service run that gave her team a 19-10 lead. Fisher owed the early-match nerves to a larger-than-usual home crowd. Normally, playoff matches are at neutral sites until the PSAL cut back this year due to budgetary reasons.
“It’s easier to play on the road when you’re young,” Fisher said. “It’s easier to band together. When you’re home, there’s too many distractions. Their friends are here. When you’re on the road, you’re there for one purpose. Here, you gotta focus. They were a little jumpy.”
Junior outside hitter Melissa Chin had 10 kills, Weldon had 16 assists and sophomore middle Natalie Kozlova had three blocks. Ana Peralta had four assists for Newcomers, the PSAL Queens A7 champ which finished a strong season after not winning a single league match last year.
“I just finished telling my girls that taking the division was a huge, huge bonus this year after coming off of last year’s season,” Lions coach Kert Fernandez said. “I told them they gotta take pride in that. Very few teams go from going 0-10 to winning their division.”
Fisher didn’t think his team should have even been playing a team as good as Newcomers this early. He wasn’t happy with seeding, especially that coaches were allowed to go and state their case this year, which was a new process. Referees declined to attend the seeding meeting this year, because they felt it was a conflict of interest.
“Bronx Science didn’t even get out of the Cardozo tournament pool play,” Fisher said. “I beat a team that they lost to two straight. They’re four, I’m seven. But I didn’t go to the meeting, so I guess I have nothing to say. Whatever. You have to play somebody good in the quarters anyway, but it would have been nice to not play Dozo.”
But that’s the task at hand. Stuyvesant has played Cardozo three times this season, so there is definite familiarity. But the Judges have taken all the meetings and Fisher knows the key is slowing down outside hitters Ashley Grubler and Martina Vaglia.
“We practiced Saturday and basically I would call out ‘Ashley’ and we would play defense,” Fisher said. “I don’t know the Italian girl’s name, so I’d go ‘Italian girl,’ we’d go to that spot. I’d go ‘dump,’ we’d go there. We know where they hit. It’s a matter of if we dig or not.”
A lot of that responsibility will fall on Hung. The first-year libero needs to help Stuyvesant swim, not sink.
“We’re so lucky that we got her,” Chin said.
