Saturday, October 15, 2011

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Jennifer Pagano finished with 9 kills as IHA overcame a 24-20 defecit in the first game to pull off a two-game sweep of previously unbeaten Bogota on Friday afternoon.

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – It is not out of character for the Bogota volleyball team to feel like it has something to prove. The Bucs represent one of the smallest high schools in the state and are constantly trying to show that they are not just the high school volleyball equivalent of the movie 'Rudy,' but also a contender for Bergen County and Tournament of Champions titles. Even after a season like last year when Bogota won the Group 1 state championship and reached the semifinals of the T of C, the questions start again as soon as the new season begins.

On the other hand, Immaculate Heart Academy, the mighty parochial power from Washington Township, comes into most seasons as the default favorite to win every title that it is eligible for and even every match that it plays in. But when the two teams, the top two seeds in the upcoming Bergen County Tournament, met up on Friday afternoon with a combined zero losses against in-state competition, it just might have been IHA that had something to prove.

Playing without its standout sophomore hitter, Nia Reed, who is scheduled for wrist surgery on Monday, IHA, the No. 1 seed in the county tournament whose only loss on the year came against a team from upstate New York, felt like it was the team with questions to answer. So with P4N (Play for Nia) written in marker on their hands, the Blue Eagles set out to make a point.

Sophomore Carly O'Sullivan led Bogota with 11 kills.

“What we were trying to prove was that a team is not just one person. We all have to work together to make the team work,” said IHA junior Jennifer Pagano. “We practiced really hard all week to try to make up for the loss of Nia because we are all really close and we want to win for each other.”

If IHA was going to come apart without Reed, it had plenty of opportunities to do so in the opening game, especially when it faced four game points. But staring a one-game deficit in the face against a team that was clicking, IHA won seven of the next eight points to grab the first set and then carried the momentum right over in to Set 2 on the way to a 27-25, 25-19 victory.

“It was a struggle but now we can look back at and say 'It's great that we had to go through that.' It made us tougher as a team for what lies ahead and prepares us more,” said Maria Nolan, IHA's co-head coach. “This win gives us so much confidence because all week long we were wondering how we would be without [Nia] and now the girls know that we will be just fine if they all work together and do their jobs on the court.”

But through the first 40 or so points of the opening game it looked like the edge in confidence was clearly on Bogota's side. The Bucs never trailed by more than three points and snapped 14-14 tie with three-point run that ended when Julia Topor drilled one through the middle to give the Bucs a 17-14 lead and force IHA to call a timeout. The Blue Eagles eventually closed back to within a point at 19-18 before Bogota ran off five of the next seven points to get to 24-20 and it held the serve.

IHA's Corina Dypko finished with a match-high 12 kills.

An attack error on the next point gave IHA a glimmer of hope and Corina Dypko gave it a real chance at a comeback when, on Larysa Iwaskiw's serve, she whacked two straight kills through the finger tips of the Bogota block to get the Eagles to within 24-23 and then tied the game at 24 with a boomer down the middle. Carly O'Sullivan stopped the bleeding for Bogota momentarily by pounding one off the block to put the Bucs back ahead 25-24, but Dypko retied the score with a blast from outside on the left off an assist from setter Amanda Garbarino. A net violation against Bogota followed by an attack error gave IHA the final two points in needed to take the first game.

“I think you have to give [IHA] credit that they played those last points tougher than we did. They played with more intensity and more focus. I don't know if our kids thought the game was over, I don't really think so, I just don't think that we matched their level of play,” said Bogota head coach Brad DiRupo, whose team lost its first match of the season after starting with 15 straight wins. “When they fell behind 24-20, they played at a different level. When we fell behind we didn't play at a different level, so I really think they deserved to beat us. They were the better team today.”

Game 2 was not the nail-biter, that Game 1 proved to be. After a Topor put down a kill and then served an ace off the tape to give Bogota a 2-1 lead, IHA took over. With the game tied at 2 after a Pagano kill, Jessica Cervini hit a service winner and followed with an ace as part of a 3-0 run that gave IHA the lead for good.

The tipping point was a 7-0 run that started with a Dypko kill and continued with six straight service points by Garbarino. Ashley Agnello had a block for a point in the sequence and Dypko dropped the hammer with a kill that closed the spurt with IHA ahead 15-7.

Bogota got to within four points four times at 16-12 on a back row winner from Elise Brackett, the only senior on the Bogota roster, at 19-15 after an IHA mishit, at 22-18 when O'Sullivan hit one off the block and at 23-19 when Topor hit the back line with a kill. But IHA found the final two points it needed to get a shot of confidence that it so rarely has needed in the past.

Bogota setter Becky Kelemen finished with 17 assists.

“We knew Bogota was a great team and they played well, but with Nia out we really felt like we had something to prove and we played like it,” said Dypko. “We had to show everybody that with or without Nia, who is a phenomenal player, we are still a good team. We have six girls out on the court and we all play hard together and do what we have to do to be successful.”

Dypko finished with a match-high 12 kills, while Pagano finished with six for IHA, which also got a match-high 23 assists from Garbarino. O'Sullivan led Bogota with 11 kills, Topor finished with 9 and Becky Kelemen handed out 17 assists. Brackett and libero Jenifer Ramirez led the Bucs defense with 7 digs apiece.

“I am so disappointed, extremely disappointed, that we did not play our 'A' game. Take nothing away from IHA because they were the better team today, but I am just disappointed with our team,” said DiRupo. “There is less pressure on us now because we have a loss, but we have to see how we bounce back from a loss because it is something we have not had to do yet this year. That is the other side of it and we'll see how we handle it.”

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