The annual Cherry Bowl Volleyball Tournament was held on August 7, on the court bordered by the Grove Hotel and the defunct Tides/Bay Leaf/Monster, and for a second consecutive season, the Copettes, the Suffolk County Police team, beat the Grovettes, the Cherry Grove team. It was an afternoon filled with ‘nailbiters,’ as Sal Piro, calling the games, might have said.
The Grovettes won the first game by a score of 25 to 23. The Copettes beat the Grovettes in the second game, where the score was 25 to 14, and also won the deciding game, 25 to 19. Sue Panzer is captain of the Grovettes, one of whom is Mark Atten, veteran of the first Grove volleyball games in 1984. Doreen Rallo was the referee. Shari served as scorekeeper. Robbie Ranger, in convict’s black and white stripes, threw out the first ball.
Brandon Cutrell, assisted by DJ Chuck McTague, sang a bel canto “Star Spangled Banner,” while Dallas Dubois held the American flag. Between the first two games, Lavinia Draper sang “Let’s Hear It for the Boys,” some of it from atop a pyramid of Cherry Tarts, the cheerleaders—Porsche, Ariel Sinclair, Dallas, Holly Dae, and lifeguard ‘Gabriella’—who, earlier, divested some of the Copettes of their shirts. Between the last two games, Porsche sang of “Vacation” and the Suffolk County Marine Bureau Emerald Society Pipes and Drums Corps marched in and played “God Bless America,” “Over There,” “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and “Amazing Grace.” During the third game, when the score was 24 to 19, the Cherry Tarts staged a sit-in on the Copettes’ side of the court, to the tune of “Let the Sun Shine.”