For the first time in the six-year tenure of Calais volleyball coach Steve McGinley, the Blue Devils are the Downeast Athletic Conference volleyball champions.

Monday, at home, second-seeded Calais beat fourth-seeded Narraguagus of Harrington in a tough, five-match game to win the 1992 DAC crown.

Calais had eliminated No. 3 Machias in its semifinal, and Narraguagus upset top-seeded defending champion Washington Academy in East Machias. The Raiders had won the title four of the past five years.

Calais had a strong tournament topped off by an exciting title match.

After beating Lubec three straight in the quarterfinal, it took five games for Calais to beat Machias. Calais won the first game and Machias the next two before Calais sewed it up with two wins.

Although Calais had beaten Narraguagus twice during the season, averaging six-point spreads in each game, the championship was not a given.

“I don’t think Narraguagus was quite as intense and aggressive when we played during the season,” McGinley said, “but when they came to the championship, they came in ready to play.”

So ready, that Narraguagus beat Calais the first game, 15-9. But Calais came back, 15-8. Narraguagus edged the Blue Devils 16-14 in the third game before McGinley’s team bore down 15-12, 15-5, for the match win and title.

The championship season was aided by the strong performances of four starters: Tracy Mulholland, Andrea Leishman, Heather Redding and Kelly Dow.

Mulholland and Leishman are senior hitter-spikers McGinley will miss next season.

Mulholland led the team in kills, with 44, and in blocks with 22. Leishman was the team leader in points off the serve, with 141.

Those seniors are two of the four regular starters with junior setter Heather Redding and freshman hitter Kelly Dow. McGinley said Dow is “definitely the best kid, at that age, I have seen.”

To complete the starting six, Calais’ depth enabled McGinley to alternate starters depending on match strategy. Rotating in were senior hitter Billie-Jo Johnson, senior hitter Karen Wheelock, junior setter Jessica Clark, and junior setter Alessa McDonald.

If McGinley had statisticians to keep track of passing, he would officially know what he informally knows: that Clark and McDonald are top passers.

The remaining members of the team made significant contributions, McGinley said of juniors Shandy Butler, Tammy Farmer, Mandi Molholland, and Mandie Worstercq.

The win was cause for celebration, not just for itself, McGinley said, but because it was won by “a really good group of girls who worked hard, together, all year. They’re a bunch of kids who really like each other, and that is very important for success. I just can’t emphasize enough how much fun it was to work with them.”

In a related development, Everett Farnsworth of East Machias dropped by the NEWS the other day to plead for more volleyball officials in Washington County.

Farnsworth and his daughter, Amy Fritz, are the volleyball assigners for the DAC.

“We had only seven officials this year,” Farnsworth said,”and we need eight. We had to go into the quarterfinals with just one official doing one of the games.”

Farnsworth thinks the time is now to start preparing for next season. “If anyone has interest in the sport, we would like to hear from him or her,” he said. “If they don’t we’ll try to teach them. We won’t be meeting until next August, but we’d just like to know who is interested.”

Officials are paid for the six-week DAC season, and Farnsworth believes there are people who could, and should, be officiating.

“When you’re up the ladder, or on the floor, you hear all kinds of officials behind you,” he quipped.

“One good thing about officiating, you’re right at least half the time.”

Anyone interested in officiating can call the assigners at 255-8933 or 255-3230.