The No. 9 Clarkstown North Rams will take on the No. 1 Suffern Mounties at the same time.

North Rockland swept Clarkstown South today, 25-23, 25-21, 25-21. Nastasha Pollard had 21 kills for North Rockland.

Carmel beat Horace Greeley 3-2 with a big 25-11 in the fifth game.

Suffern swept Mahopac, and Clarkstown North swept White Plains.

I’d just like to apologize for not posting anything after pool play on Saturday. I couldn’t log into the blog due to the kind of problem that has been rampant in our blogging system for a while. I had a lot to say about the goings-on on Saturday, but unfortunately now I can’t remember any of it.

This is my final night at the Journal News. I would share my feelings on the subject, but unfortunately I have to get up in the morning to start the new job (totally and completely unfair).

I’ve got one more game, though. Since we were stretched a little thin for this weekend, I decided to come back on Saturday for one last match, the Class B championship at Clarkstown South at 4 p.m. My replacement on the volleyball beat, Alex Myers, will be covering the other two championship matches that day, Classes AA and D at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. respectively.

I’ll see some of you at South on Saturday, and to everyone else, good luck.

This means Byram Hills is going to Pelham tomorrow for pool play, and Eastchester is going to Pearl River.

The Bears won 25-22, 17-25, 29-27, 25-18. They were led by Alisa Didio with nine aces, six kills and 18 digs. Gina Morra had 26 assists and 15 digs.

Brewster will face No. 1 Hen Hud, No. 3 Ursuline, and No. 6 Ossining in pool play.

Krystal Miranda had 17 assists and 24 digs for Putnam Valley in the 25-10, 19-25, 25-21, 25-15 loss.

No. 7 Lourdes will enter the pool hosted by No. 2 Pearl River tomorrow at 2 p.m., facing the Pirates, No. 4 Sleepy Hollow, and No. 5 Byram Hills. The two teams with the best records at the end of that day will advance to the semifinals.

Other strange stuff: Carmel as the number 2 seed in AA, over North Rockland. The Red Raiders will host a pool that will feature No. 7 seed Arlington. North Rockland and Arlington have played in the last two section championship matches in AA. Suffern got the first seed, Clarkstown North got the ninth seed and Clarkstown South got the sixth, so that puts each of the four big Rockland AA teams in separate pools.

Class A No. 2 seed Fox Lane will host a pool that includes John Jay, the fifth seed. The third seed is Ursuline, and as a reward they get to visit Hen Hud, where they will face the Sailors, Ossining, and the winner of Brewster/Lakeland. It might be tough for the Koalas to place above Ossining and move on to the next round.

Since Ardsley is the third seed in Class B, they will visit Pelham for pool play. That will probably be the most interesting pool going on Saturday.

Other teams hosting pools are Pearl River (B), Albertus Magnus©, and Westlake (No. 1 seed in C).

Class D will as usual skip right to a semifinal round. No. 3 Hamilton vs. No. 2 Keio, and No. 4 Tuckahoe vs. No. 1 Haldane, both next Thursday.

The schedules will be in the paper today, probably accurate but incomprehensible nonetheless (2nd place in Pool B at Winner of Pool A, 4:30 p.m., etc.).

Then after that match the coaches get together to figure out the seeding and matchups for the playoffs.  All the details will be in tomorrow’s paper.

Now, I know it looks bad that both volleyball beat reporters have quit during this season, and you must be asking yourselves, “What’s going on?   Do we smell bad or something?”  But really, it’s not you – it’s me.

I’ve really enjoyed covering volleyball for the past two seasons, and everybody’s been really nice to me, even when I mess up.  Thanks.  I’ll do all I can to make the mid-playoffs transition as smooth as possible.

Nastasha Pollard had a match-high 18 kills for North Rockland, but Suffern was just more consistent in this one, which is weird, because as Suffern coach Sean Barnes said, “We’re a mistake team.”

I’m sure he meant that in the most positive way.

Dakota Fried came up big for Suffern with 11 kills and 12 digs, the most in both categories for the Mounties.

The final game was very interesting, with North Rockland leading 24-21 before Suffern came back and won 26-24.  It took some great serving by Samantha Gutmann to squeeze past the Red Raiders in that game and come away with a sweep in the match.

North Rockland showed their championship form every now and then, but they were the mistake-prone team on this day, which is a role reversal.  The first match between these teams at Suffern seemed to be the better indicator of their standing relative to each other, in my opinion.   If they meet in the section playoffs, I don’t think we’ll see a sweep.

I saw Westlake beat Croton-Harmon 3-0 yesterday, making the Wildcats 15-0. Though the match wasn’t as much of a blowout as the game scores indicated, I didn’t see much to indicate that Class C will be a very interesting playoff. The Wildcats have their act together more than anyone else (partially because they graduated no one after winning the section last year). Today they picked up their first loss when they visited Hen Hud. That’s to be expected, and I’m sure they took away some good lessons. It’s a good time of year to play Hen Hud and toughen yourself up.

I think the Sailors are probably the best team around, again. I know Haldane beat them in a tournament earlier this season, which is why the Blue Devils have owned the top spot in the power rankings all season, but Haldane had the same advantage as Westlake this season. They didn’t graduate very much from a team that went to the state title match two years in a row. That means they’re likely to be the strongest team early on, when everyone else is adjusting to a new starting lineup. Now that I’ve seen Hen Hud recently (beating Fox Lane 3-0) and I’ve also seen Haldane recently (beating John Jay 3-0) I would say, arbitrarily, that Hen Hud would probably be the better team right now. Whether they can repeat as state champs is another question.