Thursday,
October 31, 2013 (Happy Halloween!)
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
|
|
Alex Garrett led her team with 19 digs and 19 kills, including the one that finished off Northern Highlands' 25-23, 23-25, 25-23 upset of defending champion Bogota in the Bergen County Tournament quarterfinals.. |
OLD TAPPAN – In most tournament brackets there is a wide spread in terms of talent between the upper seeds in the quarterfinals and the underdogs. Normally if a No. 7 took out a No. 2 it would be considered a huge upset pulled by a team that played way over its head in a game or match that it never really even should have had a chance to compete in. But Bergen County is home to many of the state's best volleyball teams, a fact that has been proven many times over many years in the state tournament, and that means that there is no easy road to glory in the Bergen County Girls Volleyball Tournament no matter the pedigree of the team presumed to be the favorite.
Heading into Wednesday night's quarterfinal round, Bogota was the No. 2 seed and the defending county champion, the No. 2 team in the state as ranked by the Star Ledger and the reigning Group 1 state champion that played in the Tournament of Champions final last season. Northern Highlands, the No. 7 seed, had seven losses on its record heading into the quarterfinals and had not made it as far as the Final 4 since 2008.
But take out the first points of the opening game and there was very little separating the two teams. So little in fact that the final invitation to Final 4 would not be handed out until each team had emptied the tank completely in a three-set classic, a back-and-forth battle between two sides that had no intention of giving an inch.
In the end, Northern Highlands had two players that were obviously feeling the effects, both emotionally and psychically, of the slugfest. Senior setter Lily Scanzillo played the final game in throws of a migraine headache and, right after the match, senior outside hitter Alex Garrett became fast friends with the garbage barrel behind the bench, a kind of surreal celebration of the Highlanders' 25-23, 23-25, 25-23 upset victory at Northern Valley/Old Tappan High School.
|
Carly O'Sullivan was brilliant throughout as she kept Bogota in it right up to the final swing. |
Needless to say, the marathon match full of swings of emotion, swings of momentum and a heckuva lot of volleyball swings taken in anger, took something out of the players involved.
“Yeah, my lunch,” said Garrett, who finally put an end to the festivities with a bomb that clanged off a desperation dig attempt on match point. “We came into this gym as the underdog. We knew we were but we wanted to prove everyone wrong. Bogota is an amazing team, so to come out and play like we did shows how much we have put into this season.”
The shocking conclusion was proceeded by a miserable start for the Highlanders who fell behind 7-1 in the first game and burned an early timeout. They faced the same six-point deficit at 12-6 in the opener before they closed the gap and once they did that neither team could forge any breathing room the rest of the way. Northern Highlands got back even for the first time at 13 in the first game, which was then tied at 16, 17 and 18 before a three-point spurt gave the Highlanders the advantage. Garrett tried to go cross court and got some help from the tape as the ball fell just on the other side of the net to give her team a 21-18 advantage.
Sadie Alberti gave Highlands a game point at 24-21 with a kill off a short set by Scanzillo. Carly O'Sullivan, Bogota's senior All-State outside hitter, came up two straight kills to get the Bucs back to within a point at 24-23, but Alberti tipped over the game-winner to give Northern Highlands a 1-0 lead.
“Bogota was not going to give us anything. We had to attack. We knew we were going to give up points. Carly [O'Sullivan] is strong, their outsides are strong and we practiced against them going cross-court because they are so good at it. In every time out, we reminded them to attack because you just can't feed Bogota the ball because they will capitalize on everything you give them,” said Northern Highlands head coach Caryn Schanstine. “It helps playing in the league we play in. We don't get too many gifted games and I think that mentally prepared us and physically prepared us to play a match like this.”
|
Senior setter Lilly Scanzillo handed out 31 assists for 7th-seeded Northern Highlands, which will play No. 3 Demarest in Friday's semifinal round. |
Game 2 was was a nail-biter from start to finish as neither team had more than a two-point lead the whole way. They split the first 20 points at 10 each and split the first 40 at 20 apiece and it was tied at 21, 22, and 23 before Bogota string two crucial points together. Shannon Mast, Highlands' middle blocker, had the timing right on an O'Sullivan swing, but the ball went off Mast's fingertips and found a hole to give the Bucs a game point and they capitalized when Tiana Henry and Natalie Torres combined for a block that forced a third and deciding set.
There were two three-point leads in the final game and they were the result of Highlands' offensive diversity. Scanzillo, who has more than 1,000 assists in her career, used the full bag of tricks with back sets, short sets in the middle and the traditional assists to the outside to a variety of hitters. Scanzillo set up Julianne Leshinsky for two straight kills to make it 13-10 and then found Alberti for a cross-court winner that made 14-11.
Bogota did not budge, however, and got back even at 16 when Casey Gillespie hit the back line on a serve for an ace. Following a familiar pattern, the deciding game was tied at 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21, but Highlands took the lead for good when Garrett (19 kills, 19 digs) hammered one off the dig to put her team up 22-21. A bad set by Bogota gave Highlands the all-important two-point cushion and Garrett's cross-court kill gave Highlands two match points at 24-22. O'Sullivan went down swinging as she saved one of those match points with her final kill of the night, but the last of Scanzillo's 31 assists went outside to Garrett, who went down the line for the final point.
The match played at a county final level between two teams that matched each others skill level and intensity for the better part of an hour-and-a-half. It was intense, it was loud and it was tight on the scoreboard just about from start to finish.
“All three of those things are three things that made this one of the best volleyball matches I have ever played and I couldn't be more proud of the girls on my team. Bogota is a great team for many reasons. They are really well-coached, really determined, so it really means a lot for us to come out on top,” said Scanzillo. “This is the farthest we have gone [in the county tournament] in my four years here and it means a lot that we have come this far in my senior year.”
In any other county in New Jersey, this match would have been a crowning moment fit for a county final with a deserving winner. In Bergen County, however, this was just the quarterfinals and Northern Highlands road only gets tougher as it will face N/V Demarest in Friday's semifinal round with top-seeded juggernaut IHA, which has won the State Tournament of Champions in five of the last six years, chugging along on the other side of the bracket.
That's Bergen County for ya.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME. TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT
OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com. |