Friday,
October 25, 2013
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Senior Marina DiTommasso finished with a team-high 10 kills for Ramapo, which won its fifth straight match in impressive fashion with a 25-11, 25-23 win at Old Tappan on Thursday. |
OLD TAPPAN – It's not like a coach can call his team together and instruct it to gain confidence. That is one of those intangible aspects of sports that can be nurtured but not taught. Ramapo's girls volleyball team did not have the kind of varsity experience coming back this year that would let the Green Raiders hit the ground running when the season began. They had to fight through some shaky moments to find out they could come out on the plus side of the scoreboard before they were truly able to get on a run.
Now? Ramapo is on such a run that it might be out of breath. The Green Raiders had won four straight games heading into their match against Northern Valley/Old Tappan on Thursday and not only extended the streak to five, they did so in a way that could only be considered shocking.
Old Tappan had only lost one match all season, but Ramapo dominated the first game and then showed some resilience in the second to complete a 25-11, 25-23 sweep in Old Tappan.
“It really is all about confidence and that might be the thing we struggled with more than anything else earlier in the year. It takes some mental toughness to go take on a team of this caliber, and we all know that Old Tappan is outstanding, and win in their gym,” said Ramapo head coach Dave Van Hook. “We had a really good win against Pascack Valley that really got us going in the right direction, that gave us the experience of beating a really good team and we needed that. That probably helped us tonight.”
What also helped was the play of senior outside hitter Marina DiTommasso, especially early in the first game to help Ramapo settle in. She went down the line for the kill that gave the Raiders a 5-1 lead and she crushed it from behind the service line later in the set. DiTommasso served five straight points, including two aces and a service winner in succession, that put Ramapo in front 12-4 and the Raiders really never let Old Tappan back in the opening set. The Golden Knights never got closer than six points the rest of the way.
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Old Tappan's Natalie Alechko was a force on the outside all match long. |
DiTommasso had two straight kills to make it 22-10 another to give the Raiders the only game point it needed at 24-11 and Megan Gambuti closed the door on the opening set with a kill from her outside spot.
“We kind of looked at it as an honor just to play a team like Old Tappan, but then we got off to a good start and just kind of went with it. We just played well as a team the whole way through,” said DiTommasso. “It was so important for us to get that early lead because we had those points in the bank in case they made a run at us. Sometimes you get into a pattern of trading points and when we did that in the first game we already had a lead to work with and we could afford to do that.”
Old Tappan just didn't have its usual passion in the opening set, but came out in the second game with more emotion, which it rode to a 3-1 lead. It seemed like order had been restored and the Knights would play their way back into the match, especially when they went up 7-4 on two straight service winners by Natalie Alechko, but Ramapo never blinked. DiTommasso got a kill to end a long rally and then went back to serve. By the time Old Tappan was able to win its next side out, Ramapo had run off 13 straight points to open a 14-7 lead. Gambuti had two kills in succession during the spurt and sophomore middle blocker Reilly White stuffed an overpass as the Green Raiders threatened to run away again.
“For me, just being able to play with the girls on the Ramapo team is an honor and then to be able to help contribute to a win like this against a team like that is an even bigger honor. I am just happy to be a part of this because every player on Old Tappan just has such great skills,” said White, who was at her best late in the second game. “Their player [Alechko] hits the ball so hard and they were setting her a lot so we knew we had to be strong with our blocks to be able to close it out. Karli Oppler was right next to me and we just tried to get to the net and be as big as we could.”
Old Tappan looked done when an attack error put it behind 16-9, but a block by Hayley Miller gave the Knights some life as they ran off five of the next six points. A Kirsten Kaiser stuff closed the gap to 17-14, an ace by Kelly Brogan made it a two-point game and Kirsten Rinaldi's smothering of an overpass cut the lead to a single point. Having not led since the score was 4-3, Alechko hit two boomers in a row to finally give Old Tappan the lead again at 19-18. The game was tied at 19, 21 and 23 and with Ramapo desperately trying to avoid a third game for all the marbles, Gambuti got a dink to fall untouched and White got up for the last of her three blocks to end the match before it could go any further.
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Lia Saluppo played a solid all around game for Ramapo, which will play Demarest in the county tournament on Saturday. |
“We knew that we couldn't let them get too much of a lead on us at any point because then we might get down on ourselves. Even when they took the lead [late in the second game] it was only a point or two and we kept our energy and our spirit up,” said Ramapo senior Lia Saluppo. “We couldn't give up. We were too close to winning and we definitely did not want to go with to a third game and let them get in a rhythm. We figured we had nothing to lose so we gave it our all.”
DiTommasso finished with a team-high 10 kills and Shannon Hubert finished with 14 assists. Ramapo (12-7) does not employ a libero, instead using its core players to return serves from the back row. Saluppo was solid in serve receive and Gambuti lead the Green Raiders with nine digs to go along with six kills. White had two of her three kills in the second game, two of them on short sets in the middle with the defense stretched to the edges against DiTommasso and Gambuti.
Ramapo will have a chance to extend its winning streak to six matches on Friday against Teaneck before Saturday's Bergen County Tournament Round of 16 against Northern Valley/ Demarest where it will be a live underdog. The Green Raiders are playing their best volleyball of the season at the exact right time.
“The thing that impressed me the most was in the second game when they took away the lead from us and went up 23-21, we showed something to ourselves, more than any one else, that we could still play in that situation. That is the confidence I am talking about,” said Van Hook. “It is very encouraging. The kids said I had my proud face on tonight and they are probably right. I was really proud of them and this was fun.”
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