Saturday, October 24, 2009

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Jessie Shevins had a match-high 25 kills to lead Tenafly past Dumont and to its first league title since 2004.

TENAFLY -- The Tenafly volleyball team was two games away from winning at least a share of its first league title since 2004 and the last one ever to be handed out in the BCSL-American Division. Tenafly played a near flawless game to open the match and was in even better shape when it won the first two points of Game 2, but Dumont, a team that won the first go-round against Tenafly this year, was also gunning for a league championship and wasn't going to go away that easy.

With the second game tied at 15, Dumont ran off 10 of the next 14 points to even things up and leave the league title hanging on the outcome of a third and deciding game.

“This game is all about momentum. That is why we won the first game and why we lost the second one,” said Michelle Koles, one of Tenafly’s six senior starters, who finished with a team-high seven digs. “When you lose a few points in a row you lose momentum. We had so much energy in the first game and got it back in the third.”

Natasha Carlos had a block on game point to give Dumont a 25-19 win in Game 2.

Jessie Shevins’ cross-court tip capped a six-point run that Tenafly used to open the second game and give Tenafly back its missing mojo, The Tigers never lost it again on the way to a 25-10, 19-25, 25-14 win that gave them at least a share of the BCSL-American Division title. Tenafly could take it outright with a win over Englewood, a team that has struggled this season, next week.

“These girls have been working their butts off since they were freshmen, going to camps to get better and I was really impressed,” said Tenafly head coach Jeff Koehler, who does not use a libero and who barely substituted in any of the three games. “I let the seniors decide it. This is their season, this is their last year and I always feel that if you go with a senior you get a little more. They have something that they will do whatever it takes to get the ball up.”

One of the interesting matchups, the game within the game, was the battle of the middle hitters. Tenafly’s Alexandra Zigouras and Dumont’s Tyler Singh went at it from start to finish and their stalemate in the middle allowed the match to be decided elsewhere. Zigouras’ efforts allowed Shevins to face a single block on the outside most of the time and her match-high 25 kills gave Tenafly the offensive advantage every time it could get her set.

Alexandra Zigouras held down the middle for Tenafly.

“I felt like it was one-on-one for a while, it was crazy. [Singh] is a great player and I knew she was going to block me and she knew I was going to block her. It was back and forth,” said Zigouras. “We just had to try to hit around it each other and I hate losing, so I wasn’t going to stop hitting as hard as I could and making it hard for her. I think she felt the same way.”

A Zigouras block gave Tenafly its first double-digit lead of Game 3 at 16-6 before Singh cut it back to single digits with a kill into that back middle and by stuffing an overpass on the return of Natasha Carlos’ serve. Zigouras got a block to give Tenafly the next point, Singh answered by knocking a spike off Zigouras’ block and out of bounds and Dumont was still hanging around five points later when Singh’s service winner had them within 19-13.

But Dumont would win just one more point the rest of the way and Shevins scored the final two points of the match, one a dart into the back left corner and the other by sending her serve off the tape and inside the line. With the win, Tenafly improved to 20-3 on the season.

Kristina Diore setting for Dumont.

“Dumont is a great team and in the second game they really came out strong and showed us that they wanted to win as bad as we did. But we realized what was at stake in the third game and we really went after it,” said Shevins, a three-sport standout. “Now we are at least co-champs and if we beat Englewood we can be champions by ourselves and we want to make sure that happens. It would be a great accomplishment because our league is so strong with teams like Rutherford, River Dell and Dumont.”

But sandwiched between the clinching of the co-championship and its shot to make the last-ever BCSL-American Division girls volleyball championship its own, Tenafly has what is likely to be a more difficult challenge.

The Tigers are the No. 11 seed in the Bergen County Tournament and will face Northern Valley/Demarest, the No. 6 seed and the nine-time county champion, on Saturday afternoon in the Round of 16.

“[Demarest head coach] Beth Powell is the best. What Jeff Jasper is to Pascack Valley [girls basketball], Beth Powell is that in volleyball and I seem to run into both of them all the time,” said Koehler, also Tenafly’s girls basketball coach. “When this was freshmen, Beth came to my camp and looked at my players that are seniors now she said ‘Wow, they are pretty good.’ And now that same group is going to get the chance to go up against her team and we know what kind of challenge that is going to be for us.”

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