So I was at a great match today, Hen Hud at John Jay. Everyone can read my story tomorrow but the way I put it was that it was a rematch of last year’s Class A final on paper but both teams are very different from last year.
But make no mistake – both teams are still part of the elite of Class A. Both played outstanding defense and the games were close – 25-17, 25-20, 25-22 win for Hen Hud. Kami Nethersole was just outstanding on offense, hitting 12 kills, seemingly getting the point whenever the Sailors needed it. Nicole Tamburri set them up with 37 assists. Jackie Tamburri, the new libero this year, had 25 digs.
For John Jay, Emily Sanders had seven kills, six assists, five aces, two blocks and nine digs. She is an outstanding setter but will likely be doing more hitting this year after John Jay graduated a lot of its offense. Emma Sheeran has been doing a good job as the second setter for the Indians so it allows Sanders, a great athlete, to do more hitting. Christen Lazarecheck looked solid as libero with 25 digs.
The second and third games were especially tight. John Jay had a 15-14 lead in the second game and it stayed close til Nethersole took over, scoring four points including the game-winning kill.
In the third game, Jessica Koren had a kill to give John Jay a 21-20 lead. Then Hen Hud called timeout. Hen Hud won the next point on a tap over the net and Nethersole had two straight kills for a 23-21 Hen Hud lead. Courtney Desmond closed out the match with a kill for Hen Hud.
Both teams credited each other’s play with John Jay coach Tom Rizzotti praising Hen Hud’s hitters and serving especially that made serve receive – something the Indians are usually very good at – difficult for them today. Passing and defense should be key to the Indians winning games this year.
Hen Hud coach Diane Swertfager credited John Jay as well, saying she thought they were outstanding, the defense, serving setting as well as hitting.

In other action today…
Haldane defeated Keio, 3-0…Rye defeated Hastings 3-1 – the Garnets have now won three matches after winning just two all of last year and will be featured in my notebook tomorrow…Dobbs Ferry defeated Rye Neck 3-2…Ursuline beat Panas 3-2… Holy Child beat KLHT 3-2, Sophia Aleksandravicius had 22 kills, 15 assists, six blocks and five aces. Sounds like she could be as good a volleyball player as she is a basketball player.

Definition: Failing in or neglectful of a duty or obligation.

As in, “I have been delinquent in updating the volleyball blog.”

Sorry about that. I’m going to pick it up, though, and things will be better from here out. I may not be covering any matches this week, but hopefully that won’t stop me from visiting a couple matches and at least getting some material for the blog. Then next week I hope I’ll be getting out to a few matches for the newspaper.

On Thursday, I’ll be in the RNN studio with sports anchor Ben Sosenko, talking a little bit about volleyball for a segment that will air on NewsCenter Now on Friday evening. Erin took care of that last week, and now it’s my turn. I’m a little nervous. I’ve done stuff on camera for RNN before, but this is a little different (because I probably won’t be given 35-40 takes to get it right).

I was interested in getting out to Ramapo-TZ yesterday to see two of the best middles in the area go head-to-head. It didn’t work out that way, though. Even though I wasn’t there, they went ahead and had the match anyway. Tappan Zee won 3-0 (27-25, 25-22, 25-15). Brittni Alexander had an impressive 18 kills for Tappan Zee. Christina Chung led Ramapo with 10 kills. Of course, you can’t judge a match entirely on stats, which is why it would’ve helped for me to be there, but it couldn’t be helped. I’ll try not to let that happen again.

Tomorrow I hope to drop in on Albertus-Pearl River on my way to the office. I’ll let you know what I’ll be covering for the newspaper next week.

In the mix of the Hen Hud tournament today, I’m guessing Haldane was the smallest school there as a Class D school but it was a big day for the Blue Devils as they reached the final. They played tough against Class AA power Massapequa, losing 25-21 and 25-18.
Haldane played great defense in the match led by libero Danielle Etta. The passing was great, serve return as well as hitting but Massapequa just excelled in all those areas too. As coach Joel Stanford put it, they played their hearts out and just were beat by a better team. Both teams made few errors as it was a solid all-around match. To see Haldane playing so well this early in the season makes you wonder just what they are capable of. I would say it definitely helps that their team has played together for so long – there does not seem to be that adjustment period of learning each other.
They beat fellow Section 1 power Ardsley in round 2 of the single game, single elimination tournament in the afternoon and then defeated Red Hook in the semis. The Blue Devils were disappointed to not have been playing their friends from Hen Hud in the semis as the defending champion Sailors were upset by Red Hook, 26-24. It’s one of those things that can happen sometimes in single elimination and playing just single games – anything can happen.
The tournament featured some of the best volleyball teams in the Lower Hudson Valley, Long Island and New Jersey. Amongst teams from our area, it was Haldane, Hen Hud, Ardsley, Westlake, North Rockland, Pelham, Clarkstown South and John Jay competing.
Haldane, Hen Hud, Ardsley and Westlake all made the top 10 to advance to the championship division.
Hen Hud was definitely disappointed with their loss and I’m sure they will only use it as motivation to push them this week with three tough matches against John Jay, Clarkstown South and Ossining.
And other things I learned today were never get to a tournament before 4 p.m., lol.

So one of the biggest tournaments around, the Hen Hud tournament, is on Saturday so I thought I would provide some details to anyone who wants to attend.
Pool play starts at 8:30 a.m. and there are 21 teams from a few different areas, including some teams from New Jersey, Long Island and Section 9.
Amongst teams from Section 1 participants include Hen Hud, Ardsley, Ossining, North Rockland, Clarkstown South, Westlake, Haldane, John Jay, Pelham and Arlington.
After pool play is finished, all the teams are reseeded into the Royal Flush Division or the White Lightning Division. It is single elimination from that point on.
There will be a championship match then and a consolation match.
Hope to see everyone there!
Any predictions as to who will win? The Sailors won last year.

Suffern at Tappan Zee yesterday was my first match this season.   It was really hot in the gym, and drizzly outside, so the only nice place to stand was in the doorway, which unfortunately was too far away from the court to see what was going on.  So I did a lot of sweating, as did everyone else in attendance.

Suffern didn’t have to sweat through their three game victory, though (clever segue),  as they won easily, 25-15, 25-12, 25-10.  To be fair, the first game was closer than the final score.

I expected good showings from Suffern’s senior setter Sam Gutmann and Tappan Zee’s senior middle Brittni Alexander, and they both did very well.  Suffern sophomore middle Kristin Schmidt was a surprise, though, with 11 kills and three blocks, playing in just the first two games.  Alexander and Suffern’s Dakota Fried each had 10 kills.

One interesting moment during the first game that was mentioned in my story: A scorekeeping error on the part of TZ cause Suffern to lose a point.  It appeared, in the book, that the wrong Suffern player was serving at the time, but this wasn’t actually the case. Suffern ended up being penalized a point anyway, and lost the serve.  Tappan Zee coach Racquel Sanchez told Alexander not to serve, but to just drop the ball, lose a point, and return the serve to Suffern (to even things up).  Suffern coach Sean Barnes appreciated the move, saying it was a classy way to deal with the situation.

In another big match today of Class A powers, Fox Lane defeated John Jay 3-1. Game scores were 25-14, 25-17, 22-25, 25-17. Setter Rebecca Rubenstein had an amazing 42 assists for the Foxes. The Foxes graduated a lot of offense but seems like they’re off to a great start. Michelle Hearns had 13 digs, seven kills and five blocks. Nora Rugova had 22 kills and Allison Terlizzi had 20 digs.
For John Jay, who also graduated a lot of offense, Emily Sanders had seven kills and 11 assist for the Indians.

Carmel defeated Brewster 3-1. Danielle Basciano had 26 assists for the Rams; Saunders defeated Rye Neck 3-2 with 11 kills for Racine Brown.

And in another five gamer, Croton defeated Rye 3-2. Game scores were 24-26, 23-25, 25-21, 25-21, 30-28. Sounds like that was quite the match. Annie Manes had 18 kills, 10 blocks and 14 digs for Croton, who is now 3-0. Samantha Lee had nine aces for Rye.

If anyone was there or at any of the other matches today, please post and let us know how they all went and who is looking good early!

So I was at my first match of the season today, a 3-0 win for Ardsley over Byram Hills. It was a great match to be at as I found out it was Ardsley coach Dave Ponterio’s 200th career win in 15 years as coach. The Panthers, defending Class B section champions, have played in six straight section finals.
The team presented Ponterio with a team-signed volleyball at the end of the match.
The Panthers looked especially good in the first game, winning 25-10, with great serving and passing and committing few errors. Brianna McGarvey had an especially good looking serve and Maggie Goldberg’s hitting was great. Goldberg finished with 13 kills. They won the next two games 25-21 and 25-18.
Kelly Scanlon had 11 kills and 15 digs for Byram Hills. Both teams have a lot of new starters this year and should only continue to just get better as the season progresses and they get more time playing together.

Wow the first Monday of the season, good to see the season in full-swing!
We had a couple five gamers.. one I’ll let Dan discuss as it is his side of the river! One was Somers 3, Lourdes 2. Meredith Devine had eight aces, ten kills and six blocks. Another one was New Rochelle 3, Saunders 2. Nicole Nwaru had nine aces and five kills for New Rochelle.
Brewster-Ursuline also went five with Brewster getting the 3-2 win. Gina Morra had 38 assists and Alisa Didio had 18 kills and 13 digs.
Pelham-Albertus Magnus went four games with Pelham prevailing and with some impressive stats. Parisa Dore had 36 assists and Falyn Torelli had 18 kills and 14 digs. Kelly O’Brien added 11 kills.

In other matches, Ardsley got its first win of the season after losing their opener 3-1 to Westlake last week. Today against Pearl River, Maggie Goldberg had 17 kills and 10 digs and J.R. Schmid had 23 assists.
Sleepy Hollow won 3-1 over Briarcliff and Laura Kirshner had 24 assists for Sleepy Hollow.

I’m looking forward to my first match of the year tomorrow, Byram Hills at Ardsley.

We had two rematches today of season-ending playoff losses for Rockland teams, with mixed results.

Suffern avenged their loss to John Jay-East Fishkill in last year’s Class AA quarterfinal by beating the Patriots today 25-15, 25-12, 25-16.

But Clarkstown North couldn’t quite topple Arlington, the team that beat them in last year’s AA semi’s. Arlington won that match 11-25, 25-20, 26-24, 19-25, 29-27. That must have been a wild fifth game.

The Blue Devils are off to a great start to the season with a senior-laden team, winning the Minisink Valley Tournament yesterday. They defeated Hen Hud in two games in the final, 25-22, 25-23.

Senior libero Danielle Etta was named Tournament MVP and senior hitter Megan Lyons had 53 kills in the tournament. Amongst Haldane’s wins in the tournament were over North Rockland, Cornwall, Newburgh and Molloy (Queens).