September 10, 2022

We have now gotten through the first Saturday of the season which means we had some regular season games on the schedule as well as the first round of tournaments for the year. We will address both in this blog as well as give the first update on stats from the first few days of Fall 2022.

Let’s look at some of the tournament updates first:

Hackensack Tournament

Hackensack hosted a girls tourney today and the grid made its way down to four finalists: Immaculate Conception, Park Ridge, Cresskill and Tenafly. The #9 Tenafly Tigers emerged the winner of the tournament and here is the championship pic…

Williamstown Tournament

Williamstown won all 9 one set regular games, made it to the playoffs where they beat East Brunswick, and went on to the championship against Washington Twp where they won 25-14. The Braves ended the day 11-0 overall.

Moorestown Tip-Off Invitational Tournament

Donovan Catholic was 11-0 on the day and defeated Pinelands for the tournament Championship in Moorestown. Shantel Starling was the team MVP for the Griffins.

Sibana Gonzalez won the All-Star award for the tournament. Congrats to the WWPS superstar…

Eastern Invitational

Eastern defeated St. John Vianney in the first semi-final and Old Bridge knocked off Colts Neck in the other semi. The Old Bridge Knights beat the host Eastern Vikings for the tournament Championship.

Paramus Tournament

Congratulations to Coach Nolan, Assistant Coach Rossiter, and the entire Blue Eagles squad at IHA for taking the Championship at the Paramus tournament Saturday.

2022 Jersey Classic @ Paramus HS

Semi Finals – IHA over Ramapo and Bogota over River Dell

Championship Game : IHA 25 – Bogota 16

IHA did not lose a set and repeats winning the Jersey Classic

In regular season games….

Paul VI jumped to 3-0 today with important wins over #13 North Hunterdon and #14 Hunterdon Central. They are #3 in the NJP preseason ranking and are living up to the high rating with exceptional wins against two perennial NJ powers. The ski is the limit for the Eagles, especially with their experience of getting to the TOC finals last season and staying so close to Williamstown in the finale. Hunterdon Central salvaged a split on the day after defeating Cherry Hill East. It was a team effort with 5 players having 4 kills or more.

Union Catholic is now 4-0 after dropping previously unbeaten Dayton in what proved to be a very tough match. Dayton came right back later in the day and held off Linden to gain a split for their Saturday efforts. Both Sam Janker and Meghan Kreinberg fired up the offense for the Bulldogs.

Westfield remains undefeated at 2-0 on the young season as they skipped past Hillsborough today. Young sophomore Caterina Carayannopoulos has hit the ground running this season adding 6 kills today.

In the SEC, MKA improved to 2-0 after spanking West Orange in straight sets. Sectional winners from 2021 Newark Academy had their first game today and fell to Verona in straight sets. Millburn just got passed Caldwell in three sets to even both their records at 1-1.

Let’s take a look at some of the individual players stats from week one so far…

KILLS:

Great start by MKA Samiyah Abdur Rahim and both sophomores at Union Catholic Rachel Williams and Ryan Gorski. Certainly some expected names on the list with Gesek, Lonergan, Wess, Janker, Fouche and Imburgia in the top 30. But many new names as well including first year varsity player Mia De Leon from Barringer and Amanda Nwankwo from Jefferson. Camila Dong from Livingston is the highest freshman on the list.

FRESHMAN:

It’s such a great honor to make the varsity team as a freshman. So our hats are off to all of these players. Only 4% of overall players this year so far are freshman. Some of these freshman are already making big contributions on their teams. Alex Landazabal is probably the most impactful freshman so far this season. The Union Catholic setter has 48 assists, 17 digs, and a whopping 10 aces after the first three days of the season. Get used to hearing these names as they will be in all probability with us for the next 4 years.

PLAYER MAKE-UP:

Based on the stats from the first few days of the season in our database, 47% of overall varsity players with stats are seniors with slightly higher percentages in each stat category from senior contributions. 18% of current players are underclassman with 14% being sophomores and 4% being freshman.

We will fill-in some of the other stats in tomorrow’s blog. Enjoy your Sunday and the first day off of 2022. Tomorrow is 9/11, 21 years later. All of our current players were not even born in 2001, but its such an important date in our history, please take the time to recognize our resilience at one of the most volatile times in our area and in our history.