Jupiter wins state championship in beach volleyball

When Lilly Fink started the beach volleyball team at Jupiter High School four years ago, she had 45 girls try out for the squad — only one had ever played beach before — the others were all indoor players.

Fast forward to Saturday, the No. 5 nationally ranked Warriors (16-1) rallied from behind to defeat No. 10 Neptune Beach Fletcher 3-2 to win the FHSAA Class 3A state championship at the Florida State University Beach Volleyball Courts in Tallahassee.

Fletcher (21-4) was leading Jupiter 2-1 after taking the No. 1 and No. 4 lines, before the Warriors rallied as they captured the No. 2 and No. 5 lines, and eventually No. 3 to claim the title in their first trip to state.

Jupiter split the first two matches as Warriors’ junior Macy McAmis and freshman Sophie Katz won their No. 2 match 2-0, while the No. 5 team of freshman Natalie Barret and senior Sophia Chapman needed three sets, but emerged 2-1. The No. 1 and No. 4 lines both lost, setting the stage for seniors Elaina Avila and Kate Guarneri at No. 3.

Avila and Guarneri finished the season undefeated at 16-0, rotating between lines two and three. They dropped the first set in the final, but came back and won the next two with the knockout blow being delivered by Avila, on a left-handed, cross-court slam that touched off a wild postgame celebration in the sand as the team rushed the court after Jupiter earned its 10th consecutive win. The only blemish was a 3-2 loss to Vero Beach. The Senators finished 21-4, as their 14-match winning streak came to an end.

“I have never felt this feeling before especially since we hadn’t gotten out of districts before,” said Guarneri, who along with Avila, is among the five original seniors on the team.

“For us to go this far and accomplish what we could only dream of,” Guarneri added by phone, “It is just an amazing feeling. It doesn’t even feel real to me that we won the state championship. We have always been looking at and seeing all of the other teams do it and now we are that team that everyone will be looking at.”

Avila agreed: “This is the best feeling ever. We were so tired and we were in the third set and the teams were there in the bleachers and we knew we just had to give it our all. It was so rewarding. This was our last chance to win and we did it.”

The five doubles teams are paired together and play a best-of-three format to earn a point for their team. The team wins a best-of-five match. McAmis and Katz were also undefeated for the season on line No. 2.

To reach the final, Jupiter took out St. Thomas Aquinas 3-0 on Friday night in a match marred by bad weather and lightning delays. It seems to follow the Raiders (19-5), who had to deal with a tornado touching down near their hotel and the power going out during last year’s state tournament. This year’s semifinal was stretched out about six hours with the match ending close to 11 p.m.

“Every year our girls put their hearts on the line and we inch closer and closer to the ultimate goal,” said St. Thomas Aquinas coach Dave Palm by phone. “Six years in a row we make it to states and every year advancing and improving. The last two years we made it to state semifinals and losing to the team that wins it all.”

Guarneri said it did affect the final since all five matches went out on the courts at the same time. Normally two teams play, followed by three teams.

“It was like nothing we had ever done before,” Guarneri said.

Fink said the semifinal match against St. Thomas was supposed to begin at 4 and they arrived at the court at 2:15 p.m. Shortly after they were told to go back to the hotel due to a lightning delay.

“We came back after the pause ended up playing until around 9:30 in the rain,” Fink said by phone. “I think the girls started out a little nervous because St. Thomas had been there before and we had never been to state.

“When we had our break,” Fink continued, “we went to Panera and we told the girls and the families they need to be hyped. It was a storybook ending in the last game with our senior pair, Kate and Elaina winning their match.”