PLAINVILLE – Melissa Reynolds was a senior on the last Glastonbury volleyball team to win a state title.
That was in 1993.
Reynolds is now the Glastonbury volleyball coach. Her daughter Mckenna, who has started at setter for three years, is a junior captain.
Now, the Guardians are going back to the state championship game for the first time since 1993 after Glastonbury upset top-seeded Southington 3-2 (25-27, 25-21, 19-25, 25-20, 15-13) in the Class LL semifinal match Wednesday night at Plainville High.
“It’s like a full circle moment,” said Mckenna, who had 46 assists, five kills and five digs. “The last time we went to the finals was when she won the state championship in ’93. It’s our only state championship.
“We’ve worked so hard together. It’s really special to me that I get to do it with someone I love.”
Fifth-seeded Glastonbury will play No. 3 Darien, the defending Class LL champion, which defeated Greenwich Wednesday night, 3-2, on Saturday at 6 p.m. at East Haven High for the Class LL title.
Glastonbury advances to the Class LL championship game with a 3-2 win over Southington #ctvb pic.twitter.com/j54XOZaPc2
— Lori Riley (@lrileysports) November 14, 2024
Southington, last year’s Class LL runner-up, had an undefeated regular season at 18-0 and had only lost once, to Glastonbury in the CCC championship game 3-1. The Knights (23-2) had beaten Glastonbury (20-5) twice during the season, 3-2 and 3-0.
Before the CCC tournament, Mckenna said the captains had a team meeting. The Guardians had lost to Farmington (a Class L finalist and last year’s state champion) and Southington back-to-back toward the end of the regular season.
“We discussed how we need to better our environment and better our mentality when we go into games,” she said. “Our mentality switch we made was to be super aggressive and go hard on the serves, go hard on the swings, focus on staying aggressive at the net and don’t play timid.”
Glastonbury beat Farmington in the semifinals and knocked off Southington in the finals, and rode that momentum into the state tournament and an inevitable fourth matchup with Southington.
On Wednesday night, Glastonbury lost the first set but rallied to win the second. Southington came back to win the third, but Glastonbury wouldn’t go away.
“Going in, we were pretty relaxed,” Melissa said. “We had won before. I felt pretty confident. The girls were loose at practice, they were excited, they wanted to compete.”
But she wasn’t so confident as the match went on. “Southington just wouldn’t stop,” she said. “We’d go on a 5-0 run, they’d go on a 5-0 run. It was a constant battle. Even at the end, when we were up 12-9, I was like, ‘Guys, they are not going to stop. They are going to come back. Which they did.”
Class LL semifinal: Glastonbury ties it up at 2 with a 25-20 win, heading to the tiebreaker set. Glastonbury is the only team to beat top seeded Southington (23-1) this year, in the CCC championship #ctvb pic.twitter.com/AgCHjFrsqw
— Lori Riley (@lrileysports) November 14, 2024
Junior outside hitter Reese Henderson had 17 kills and seniors Lauren Mosca and Kara Shea had 13 and 12, respectively, for Glastonbury.
Reynolds is in her second year as head coach. She was an assistant Mckenna’s freshman year. Mckenna started playing in seventh grade when she tired of soccer and was looking for another sport to try.
“We’re always going to hear, ‘It’s Coach’s kid, this and that,’ so she’s had to prove herself more than other players have to,” Melissa said. “I tell her, ‘You get yelled at more, you get lectures in the car on the way home.’
“I do ask her, ‘Do you want Mom, or do you want Coach in the car right now?’ I try to keep that separate.”
Mckenna said her mother doesn’t talk much about her state championship, but everybody knows about the lone banner in the gym from 1993. Back then, she was Missy Roy and her team went 22-0. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2015.
it won’t be easy for Glastonbury, which opened the season with Darien and lost 3-1. An FCIAC school has won the state championship eight of the last nine years.
“I’m trying not to think of it as being full circle, we want it to just to be for these girls, in the moment,” Melissa said. “These girls have put in the work.”