By Fred Siegle
METUCHEN - Southern entered Tuesday's quad match against St. Joseph, St. Peters and CBA - three teams in the Powerzonevb.com state top 10 - as a very good team. The Rams left with a confidence that could help them become a GREAT team. Maybe even great enough to win a state title.
The Rams, No. 3 in the pre-season top 10, emerged as the only unscathed team from the early season battle of titans. St. Joes, which was No. 1 in the pre-season, went 2-1, No. 7 CBA went 1-2, and No. 6 St. Peters was 0-3.
In the premier matchup of the day, Southern beat St. Joes 25-22, 25-8. The key, Rams' coach Eric Maxwell said, was closing out the first game.
"We were up 22-20, and if they had found a way to come back and win, I don't think the second game would have happened that way. We took advantage after winning that close game.''
The Rams opened the day by beat CBA 25-17, 25-10, then earned the victory over St. Joes. They then had a letdown in Game 1 against St. Peter's, losing 25-20, but rebounded to win Games 2 and 3 25-15, 25-13. Maxwell played his backup setter through the entire first game against St. Peters.
"I think it was good for us to lose that game,'' he said. "We're going to have to play three games again this year, so it was good to face that adversity. I didn't particularly like it as it was happening, but when we came back and won, it was a good learning experience. It all worked out in the end.''
In the victory over St. Joes, left side Jeff Elsasser had 6 kills and right side Nolan King had 7, while middles Fran Hodgson and Bryan Batiste helped take the Falcons out of their game with their imposing block. Paul Konopacki led St. Joes with 4 kills.
"We just came ready to play today,'' Elsasser said. "We know St. Joes and their players well, we know their strengths and weaknesses. We just keyed on stopping Keith (MacDonald) and Drew (Colon) and we served at their weak spots. We know they have good middles so we tried to double block on them and then did the best we could on the outsides.''
Against CBA, Hodgson had 6 kills and 3 blocks, Elsasser contributed 5 kills, a block and 5 digs, King had 4 kills and 2 blocks, and setter Steve Vaughan dished out 17 assists and added 2 kills and 8 digs. In the win over St. Peters, Elsasser had 10 kills and 15 digs, Hodgson had 6 kills and 3 blocks, King added 6 kills, and Batiste contributed 3 blocks.
"When you have players like Jeff, Nolan and Fran - those are three seniors who are quality, all-around players - there are times you're team is going to be great,'' Maxwell said. "When those guys are on, we can beat anybody. They can carry us.''
Maxwell summed up Southern's performance pretty easily: "We had a pretty good day here.''
But he knows it's still early in the season. "I know we're good enough to play anybody,'' Maxwell said. "It feels good winning out here, but if we had lost, it wouldn't have changed anything, we'd go on from here and keep working and try to find the way to beat these type of teams. We're going to keep trying to improve and try to maintain the level we played at today.''
St. Joes rebounded from the loss to Southern by beating CBA 25-20 25-18. The Falcons opened the day by beating St. Peters, 25-21, 25-19. In one of the strangest games ever, St. Joes started the first game with an 18-0 lead before St. Peters battled back.
Marcin Midura had 7 aces, 9 kills and 8 digs against No. 6 St. Peters, while MacDonald added 6 kills. Against CBA, MacDonald had 7 kills, and Colon and Konopacki each had 5.
Right side Brendan Corley had 7 kills to lead CBA in its win against St. Peters.
"We know what it takes now to beat good teams,'' setter Austin Hagaman said. "We have to go home now and work on our defense, work on our plays. We have to get quicker with our offense.''
St. Peters coach Don Guide said the experience of playing the top teams will help his team in the long run as well. "We know now we're not passing hard jump serves real well, we just haven't had a chance to play that kind of competition. We see what we have to do.''
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