October
26, 2006
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| River Dell players celebrating their three-game win over Old Tappan in Wednesday night's Bergen County quarterfinals. | |
OLD TAPPAN – By all accounts, this is supposed to be River Dell’s year and the senior-dominated team has delivered by winning every one of its matches this season with relative ease. But it took just one game for all the hard work that went into making a run at a Bergen County championship to start slipping from the Hawks’ grasp.
In Wednesday’s quarterfinal against host Northern Valley/Old Tappan, the Hawks dropped the first game, and needed to sweep the last two or see a season’s worth of hard work go by the boards. A start strong in both the second and third games was the only answer for the Hawks and they did that as well as a team possibly could.
The result: their first berth in the Bergen semifinals since 2000.
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| Old Tappan's Kayle Anders was dominant in the first game and finished with a career-high 18 kills. |
Senior Rebecca Schaefer served well during a crucial 9-0 run in the second game. Julia Reilly had three kills during the spurt off feeds from setter Kristen Walters as third-seeded River Dell never trailed in either of the final two games. Teammate Alyssa May finished two digs shy of a triple-double to help lead the Hawks into the semifinals with a 20-25, 25-19, 25-16 over the sixth-seeded Golden Knights.
“Even when we lost the first game, I knew we had the confidence to come back,” said Walters, a junior. “It was so important to start off well in the second game. Once we get going, we’re tough to stop. We served and passed really well in the second and third games. I thought that was the key to us coming back to win.”
Playing on their home court, it was the Golden Knights who got out of the gate quickly. Junior middle blocker Kayla Anders was on fire to start the match and carried her team throughout the first game. She had a block and two kills in succession to give Old Tappan an early 10-4 lead.
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| River Dell's Kristen Walters finished with 22 assists, eight service points, and eight digs. |
The lead grew to as many as eight, before the Hawks got on a little run capped by Melissa Gramuglia’s ace to trim the lead down to 18-15. With the Golden Knights needing guidance, it was Anders and setter Sondra Snyder who provided it, by going on a 7-2 run to close out the game.
“Anders dominated the first game and we didn’t have an answer for her,” said River Dell head coach Dianne Furusawa. “The improvement she has shown just from the beginning of this season to right now is remarkable. I just told the girls not to give away points early and come out strong in the second game. We wanted to make them play from behind and force them to catch up.”
Walters served well to start the second game and the Hawks followed suit. Brelyn Kirk and May had back-to-back kills as the Hawks grabbed a 10-3 lead. The Golden Knights fought back and got to within two points on a Snyder ace. But they never got any closer and they Hawks closed out the game on a Kirk kill to even the match.
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| Old Tappan setter Sondra Snyder had 19 assists, eight service points, and six digs. |
The Hawks held a slim 4-3 lead in the third and deciding game before Schaeffer went back to serve after a sideout Although she did not record an ace during the run, her deep serves forced the Golden Knights to give River Dell several free balls. May and Reilly made them pay with kill after kill while Anders was kept in the back row unable to get involved in the offense.
Old Tappan head coach Melissa Landeck used both of her timeouts to try and slow the run down. But by the time it was over, the Hawks had a double-digit lead and the match was all but over.
“We just wanted to keep [Anders] in the back row for as long as we could,” said Furusawa. “You saw in the first game what she can do when she is on. I knew that was our time to pad our lead, but I didn’t think it would be 10 points by the time she got back to the front row.”
May finished with 12 assists, 10 kills, and eight digs for River Dell (22-0). Reilly notched a match-high 15 kills and 10 digs. Walters was consistent throughout, closing with 22 assists, eight service points, and eight digs. Kirk chipped in with eight kills.
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| Kiara Besonia and River Dell advanced to the semfinals where they will face 7th-seeded Pasacak Valley on Friday night. |
Anders was outstanding for Northern Valley/Old Tappan (13-5) recording a career-high 18 kills. Snyder added 19 assists, eight service points, and six digs.
The Hawks move onto to Friday’s Bergen semifinals against seventh-seeded Pascack Valley, a 25-23, 25-16 winner over second-seeded Paramus. They will be the first game of the doubleheader with a 5:30 start time.
“It feels just great to beat a good team like Old Tappan and go to the semifinals,” said Kirk. “We know people are gunning for us now instead of us gunning for them, but that’s OK. We knew we could do it and we knew get this far. Now that we’re finally here, we want to go even further.”
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