Monday,
November 7, 2013
By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer
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Clifton's April DiAngelo had 10 kills, four assists, two aces and a block in Clifton's 27-25, 25-14 sweep of Ridgewood in the North 1, Group 4 volleyball tournament on Wednesday. |
RIDGEWOOD – It is not often in a volleyball match that a team catches one break after another on an opponent’s home floor. That scenario playing out in a state tournament match against a quality foe is even more unlikely. After stealing the first game against Ridgewood yesterday, Clifton head coach Nick Romanak knew he had not only dodged a major bullet but also gained a little psychological advantage heading into the second game. With the season on the line and the Mustangs playing the role of the underdog, he felt that his team needed use that advantage to take control of the match.
The Mustangs did just that as Kelly Douglass had seven of her ten kills in the second game and April DiAngelo had a solid all-around game to lift 18th seeded Clifton to a 27-25, 25-14 victory over No. 15 seed Ridgewood on Wednesday in a first-round NJSIAA North 1, Group 4 state tournament match at Ridgewood High School.
“We are so happy that we won this match, this is a big win for us,” said Clifton’s Kelly Douglass. “We were so confident after surviving in the first game. Once we cleaned our side up and stopped making silly mistakes, we went on a run. This match was do-or-die for our season and we didn’t want it to end yet.”
Clifton looked good inside the lines early on. It was behind the service line, however, that was its Achilles’ heel throughout the first game allowing the Maroons to stay in it before getting into a rhythm and grabbing the lead. Brittany Gilbert had three consecutive kills off sets from Leah Stevenson to give Ridgewood its largest lead of the match, 13-8.
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Brittany Gilbert (left) had three consecutive kills in the first game to give Ridgewood an early lead. |
The Mustangs kept plugging away and clawed their way back before taking their first lead since early in the first game (3-2) on a kill from DiAngelo off of a backset from Sara Douglass, 17-16. From there, Ridgewood had a one-point lead on six occasions, but was unable to close out the pesky Mustangs. At 25-all, DiAngelo came up with a crucial block and Clifton took the lead.
An attack error on the next point gave Clifton the game. Despite seven service errors in the opening game, the Mustangs had a one-game lead and could collectively breathe a sigh of relief.
“We were very, very fortunate to make plays when we had to in order to win that first game,” said Romanak. “I told them simply to clean it up. If they were going to come back on us, I wanted it to happen with us playing aggressive and staying away from service and hitting errors.
"We’re a team that needs to stay positive. When we do that, we play much better and we play loose. But when we drop the first game of a match, we tend to get down on ourselves. I knew this was a big opportunity for us to get back down to basics and raise our level of play.”
Ridgewood’s Kelley Ekert put down a big kill to tie the second game at 9-9. But from there it was all Clifton as the Mustangs finally hit their stride with Kelly Douglass and DiAngelo providing a power-finesse tandem at the net that the Maroons had no answer for. Douglass powered kills through double blocks while DiAngelo used her guile to pick out an open spots on the floor. She had six kills in a closing 16-5 run, including two dumps for kills.
“We hit better and played smarter in the second game,” added Douglass. “We also stayed away from making errors and giving away points, which was huge. Winning that first game gave us a huge boost of energy that carried us through the second game.”
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Sisters Sara and Kelly Douglass both played well for Clifton. |
DiAngelo did a little bit of everything with 10 kills, four assists, two aces, and the big block late in the opening game for Clifton (18-3). Kelly Douglass tied DiAngelo for match-high honors with 10 kills while her sister Sara led the team in assists with eight.
Leah Stevenson led all players with 15 assists and Meri Lowy did the same with nine digs for Ridgewood, whose season came to a close with a 10-12 mark.
Clifton advances to the Round of 16 on Friday where they will travel to play one of the state’s top teams, No. 2 seed North Hunterdon. Although pulling out a win there will be a tall task.
“It’s going to be a long ride down there, but it’s a great opportunity for us to play a team like North Hunterdon,” said Romanak. “I thought we showed a massive improvement in all phases from the first game to the second today. We only missed one serve and had only a handful of hitting errors in the second game. We’ll continue working on the basics and see what happens.”
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