Wednesday,
October 2, 2013
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Sophomore Natalie Alechko had a team-high 10 kills for Old Tappan, which improved to 7-1 with a 25-20, 25-21 win over Paramus. |
OLD TAPPAN – As the Bergen County volleyball season starts to heat up there are going to be a bunch of matches between top teams that go the way one between Northern Valley/Old Tappan and Paramus did on Tuesday night. There were lots of one and two-point leads being traded back and forth throughout the match and late in both games there were tied scores that led to a sprint to the finish.
That is life at the high echelon of North Jersey volleyball. Old Tappan suffered its first loss of the season against rival Northern Valley/Demarest in two games that lasted past the regulation 25 points and the young Golden Knights seem to have taken the lesson learned there and put it into action to hand Paramus its first loss of the season.
The first game was tied at 20 before Old Tappan ran off the final five points and Game 2 was tied at 21 before the Golden Knights rattled off the final four points to take a 25-20, 25-21 win on its own home floor.
“It was a well-played match between two good teams and I was especially happy with my team, the way they kept their composure. It got tight and I think we are growing up as the season goes on,” said Old Tappan head coach Melissa Landeck. “We are learning how to live in those moments and play in those moments without becoming frenzied or nervous. We are remaining confident in our play and I think that is what you have to do to be a good team. You have to play well when the game gets tight.”
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Sophomore Maria Bellinger (16 kills) was a force at the net for Paramus. |
And it was tight just about all the way though. With Paramus setting outside hitter Maria Bellinger at every opportunity and Old Tappan varying its attack, the largest lead for either team in the opening set was five points held by Old Tappan at 18-13. An attack error, a Natalie Alechko hammer that ricocheted off a dig attempt and a net violation gave the Knights the three-point run that gave them their largest lead.
But three straight points by Bellinger, one a boomer down the line and two that went off the double block at the net got Paramus back even at 19 before the teams traded points to make it 20-20. In the final five points leading up to Old Tappan taking a 1-0 lead, each mistake was magnified. Paramus made three of them while the Knights earned the other two points, one when Erika Calabrese thwarted the block to give OT the lead for good at 21-20 and the other when Hayley Miller did the same from the middle to finish off the opener.
“I think that we work off each others energy. As soon as we lose a few points we get a little down, but as soon as we get a kill we get back together and go on a run. Today, even our coach said, we kept really good composure. By our body language you couldn't tell if we were down or we were up because we had positive energy throughout the whole thing,” said Miller, a junior. “A win like this gives us great confidence because we are going to have to play games like this against teams like Paramus, like Demarest, like Bogota, they are all good and this was a great practice for what we can expect the rest of the year.”
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Old Tappan setter Kelly Brogan had 20 assists and also stole a couple of key points at the net. |
Game 2 was more of the same as Old Tappan took a four-point lead at 13-9 when Olivia Budinich served a winner, but Paramus came back again and again it was behind Bellinger. She had two kills in a four-point run and then helped tie the set at 13 when she combined with Gina Kisley for a block at the net. With the score tied at 14, Paramus rattled off four straight points on the serve of Erika DiPasquale. She served an ace to start the run and Bellinger had a kill and a block to give the Spartans an 18-14 lead, their largest in either game.
Old Tappan rallied by winning five of the next six points. Kristen Rinaldi got one over the block, Kirsten Kaiser made a block, Calabrese had a kill from the outside and Miller slammed one off the block to tie the game at 19.
“We know we had to stay aggressive the whole time, but I thought we got defensive at points and that is going to hurt you against good teams. We made too many unforced errors,” said Maria Elena Bellinger, the Paramus head coach and the mother of the outside hitter. “When you get into these types of games against these type of teams, and we see them in the league, in the county and our group for states, it's any given day. The two keys are staying aggressive, you can't give your opponent free balls, and limiting unforced errors and I don't think we did our best job of that today.”
Paramus took its final lead at 21-19 when Tori Ondo won a joust at the net Sky DiGiralamo hit the back line for a kill, but an unforced error started Old Tappan's final comeback and the Knights' sophomore setter Kelly Brogan stole the tying point when she won a scramble for an overpass at the tape against a taller block to make it 21-all. Miller gave Old Tappan the lead for good at 22-21, Calabrese hit one off the block and a service winner gave Old Tappan the only match point it needed. A miscommunication on the return of the next serve gave Old Tappan the sweep, although a hard-earned one.
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Erika DiPasquale had a match-high 21 assists for Paramus, which had one seven stgraight matches to start the season. |
Maria Bellinger was outstanding throughout as the sophomore finished with 16 kills on 32 swings, an tremendous success rate. Libero Jessica Chakonis led the Paramus defense with 11 digs and DiPasquale handed out 21 assists for the Spartans, who fell to 7-1 on the season.
Old Tappan was more balanced in its attack as Alechko finished with a team-high 10 kills and also played solid defense with 8 digs as did Budinich, OT's libero. Brogan handed out 20 assists for Old Tappan, which improved to 7-1 on the season with a roster that includes just two seniors, Rinaldi and Danielle Matteo.
“We just work well as a team. There is no pointing the finger and saying, 'That was your fault.' If we lose a point we all just say, 'Let's get the next one.' We just push through and we don't let the score affect us,” said Alechko, whose sister Sam, a 2013 Old Tappan graduate is now playing at Division 1 Quinnipiac. “We have an advantage because we are very versatile and play as a team. A lot of people say we are such as young team because we only have two seniors, but everybody is stepping up and playing their hardest. The advantage comes when everybody makes themselves available and that makes it hard for the other team to know what to do.”
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