Wednesday, October 5, 2011

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Katherine Haines' work at the net got Ridgefield Park off to a fast start in its two-game sweep at Garfield on Tuesday afternoon.

GARFIELD - With the Bergen County tournament cutoff coming up on Friday and the seeding meeting to be held early next week, the last thing Ridgefield Park needed was a slip-up that could highly impact its place in the tournament in a negative way. The Lady Scarlets opponent on Tuesday presented an interesting challenge as it was one they have not played in over a decade.

Garfield has shown flashes throughout the year that it can throw a scare into an opponent into deep water by pushing several tough teams to three games. But the Scarlets were on a roll coming into the match and it carried over into a crucial hot start.

Katherine Haines had back-to-back kills to cap a 10-1 run to start the match and Issel Garcia had three consecutive aces in the second game as Ridgefield Park had big closing runs in both games for a 25-16, 25-15 win at Garfield High School.

"We didn't really know anything about Garfield, but it forced us to focus on simply playing our game," said Ridgefield Park head coach Kim Van Saders. "I thought we came in fired up and we got off to a great start. But then we stopped communicating and there was a big differerence in our level of play when we didn't. I thought we got back on track in both games, though, and pulled away when we needed to."

Angie Taveras working the net for Garfield.

Ridgefield Park completely overwhelmed the Boilermakers early with its size advantage at the net. Megan Quimby had consecutive kills and Haines followed with consecutive kills of her own as the Scarlets raced out to a 10-1 lead.

The Boilermakers showed some fight as they battled their way back to within two points, 14-12, on a block by Ariana Gomez, but the Scarlets got a lucky break as a mishit by setter Irene Kontogiannis found a spot right in between three diving Garfield players for a kill to make it 20-16 in the midst of a 7-0 spurt to close out the game.

Garfield hung tough in the second game and took its first lead of the match at 7-6 on a kill from Yarnellys Carela. After kills from RP's Star Kontogiannis and Haines snapped a 10-10 tie, Garcia took over the game without the Scarlets having to run an offense. She had three straight aces to take the life out of the Boilermakers and boost Ridgefield Park to its fourth straight victory.

"Once we're on our game, we feel like we can dominate and it all starts with serving," said Haines. "That's definitely a big part of the game and (Garcia) made some big serves today that got us back on our game."

Issel Garcia helped RP pull away with her serves.

Garcia finished with a career-high seven aces for Ridgefield Park (9-2) to go along with five kills, four digs, and two assists. Irene Kontogiannis led all players with 18 assists. Haines had nine kills, two aces, and a block and Quimby chipped in with seven kills. Priscilla DeJesus had nine assists and Carela added four kills and a block for Garfield (8-10).

With winnable games against Bergenfield and Englewood before the cutoff on Friday, the Scarlets have a good shot to go into the Bergen County Tournament with an 11-2 mark and a chance to make some waves. Along with being tied with Westwood atop the Big North-American Division, there is a buzz in the air that this could be a special year for Ridgefield Park.

"We're not there yet, but we see how good we can become," said Garcia. "This year, we expect a lot out of ourselves and our confidence is growing with each win. As long as we can play better than we did the day before, we're definitely on our way to having a great season."

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