April 24, 2024

This is our first blog post for the 2024 Boy’s season. I expect we will be all over the place tonight but wanted to share some initial observations for the start of the year in a variety of topics.

The social media privacy landscape continues to change. ALL of our correspondence is done by DM and email so we have a written track record and documentation of every conversation. We pride ourselves on being a positive influence and a resource for the NJ volleyball community. We talk with a ton of players and coaches on a regular basis and usually use social media for those contacts. Recent changes have made it difficult to send messages to players unless they connect or friend us. Always feel free to connect and let us know how your team is doing. We try to get back to everyone within 24 hours and most of the time within a few minutes, especially late at night. Mom and Dad conversations welcome also.

Typically we got a lot of feedback on our ranking and rating system. Our rating system for both team and players are based on a proprietary math algorithm. There is no bias in our system.

A big shutout to NJ native Patrick Rogers (pictured as our feature). Patrick played his sophomore season at Ball State. Ball State finished ranked #13 in the nation at D1. Patrick was spectacular for the Cardinals posting 269 kills and hitting .361. He also posted 126 digs and 37 blocks. Patrick played club volleyball at both SideOut Sports and Warren SixPack. His high school, St. Mary’s Rutherford did not offer boys volleyball when he attended. But they do now!!

We left off last year with 186 teams in our rankings and started this year with 203. Boys volleyball continues to be the fastest growing sport in both high school and college. It’s awesome to see NJ being at the heart of this growth.

Of the 17 new teams, we have seen some already starting to make an impact in the rankings. Typically, it takes a few years to get a program optimized to where the team can compete successfully in conference play. Let’s give a big shutout to Lenape who has started the season at 7-2 playing in the Olympic American. Junior setter Joe Novellino has been orchestrating a well rounded offensive attack lead by juniors Mark Szatkowski, David Williams and Ethan Blackburn. Middles Luis Sandoval-Curvo and Constantine Mousouttas have combined for over 50 kills already on the young season. Novellino leads the team in aces, blocks and of course assists. Lenape made it into the top 15 in NJP’s first ranking Sunday but lost to Rancocas Valley in 3 sets this week. We will see how they land in the updated rankings this weekend.

Cherokee and Demarest are also new on the scene this year and have very respectable records thus far with wins close to losses. Both these schools have spectacular girls programs so its not a big surprise that they have started well and are getting strong school support.

Many teams are not participating in individual stat keeping. So far, these 25 teams have not entered any individual stats:

Hudson Catholic
Cherokee
Hoboken
LEAP Academy
St. Mary (Ruth.)
Newark Central
Asbury Park
Newark Global Studies
Paul VI
Palisades Park
Hoboken Charter
Camden Eastside
Central Jersey College Charter
Eagle Academy
Camden
Dover
West Side
Red Bank Catholic
Pope John
BelovED Charter
College Achieve Paterson
University
KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy
Cape May Tech
Newark Lab

We certainly want to encourage all school teams to show your individual player statistics. One of our goals is to raise player visibility for potential entrance into college programs throughout the country. If they are not listed, there is little chance of getting mentions, accolades, and articles that can be used as part of that players resume’ to college coaches.

With many new teams hitting the landscape this season, we want to again emphasize the importance of keeping accurate analytics. We have published several articles on proper record keeping for stats. We have tried to police this accuracy in the past but have no intention on doing that again this season. Education can can have a powerful effect on keeping the integrity of NJ Boys HS Volleyball data. Although we will not be policing overall, we will point out some specific clerical errors. Our sort of the first round of individual data showed a clear clerical error on the number of aces by a player. Instead of 11 aces, it was entered as 111. We double checked it today and it was already corrected which shows great progress. It was noted that the player only had 8 service points but we were glad the overall correction was made.

When we think of the strongest returning players for this season, the names that pop up are Tim Ennis (SPF), Oliver Hogan (Summit), Anthony Matute (Passaic Charter), Trevor Van Valkenburgh (Jackson Liberty), Adam Westrich (CBA), Max Baczynski (Ramapo), Matt Peralta (Hackensack), Massimo Roco (Old Bridge), Angelo Addiego (Southern), Jeff Merkin (Jefferson), Malcolm Bragg (Newark Tech), Jan Tracz (Manchester Township), Matt McSorely (Colonia) and many others from our list of last years strongest juniors (Junior Awards – NJ High School Boys Spring 2023 Volleyball – NJPowerRanking). But there are always emerging players not so much on our radar that are having breakout seasons and we have seen several already this year…

Hillside senior Javon Scott has blasted onto the scene for 2024 and currently leads all players with 172 kills. The 6’5″ middle also has 28 blocks which puts him in the top 10 in NJ. Javon already has 10 double digit kill tallies in matches this season.

Colts Neck middle Krister Leya has put back 33 blocks thus far this season, which is second best in NJ. The junior is making his mark in the middle for the Cougars.

Junior Peter Gioacchini of St. John Vianney is currently second in NJ with 293 assists. It’s his first time in the full time setter role for the Lancers and he is making the most of his volleyball journey thus far.

Emmanual Smith, a senior from Montclair Immaculate is currently leading the state in aces with 30. He has already eclipsed his 29 from last season. Emmanual has been a complete player this season with 108 assists, 19 blocks, 21 kills, and 48 digs. He leads the 6-4 Lions team in blocks, assists, and aces.

Jacob Buss of Colts Neck is sneaking up on 500 career kills. The senior had one match this season where he posted 27 kills in a single match. Another big presence up front for the Cougars, the 6’5″ OH is way ahead of the pace he set last year where he put up over 200 kills and 100 digs.

Dan Latkowski of Colonia has really emerged for his junior season as a player to be reckoned with. Latkowski has 132 kills, 33 blocks, and 26 aces thus far in his second year.

Junior Andrew Mohlenhoff has picked up where he left off last year. The Jefferson junior is currently third in NJ in digs and leads all juniors in this category.

These are just some of the rising stars that will continue to identify themselves as the season progresses.

Some quick notes on our first ranking. Our first five rated teams have a 48-1 record and 97-5 set record with 1 loss and 2 of those set losses coming to each other coming into tonight. These teams are clearly dominant forces thus far and they have clearly identified themselves as the NJ elite. Old Bridge and Southern battled earlier this season in a 2-1 thriller. But a significant match happened tonight as SPF downed Southern convincingly. This will shakeup the top 3 in the next ranking most likely. These three teams have been dominant over the past few years and this season will be much the same.

SPF has always had great success during the regular season and broke through last season with a state group Championship. Old Bridge and Southern have the massive advantage of Coach Hopman and Coach Maxwell who are seasoned, multiple champions, and demand the highest level of excellence from their players.

NJP