EAST BRUNSWICK REIGNS

By Fred Siegle

SOUTH BRUNSWICK - East Brunswick's seniors all had their moments last night as the Bears beat St. Peters 25-21, 25-22 to win the state title on Friday.

It wasn't just regular starters Eric Corpus, Travis Heilman, Kyle Barry, John McLaughlin, Dan Korten and Sameer Sood. Coach Greg Rutz was able to give his seniors off the bench - Julian Millan and Brian Gieser - a chance to play in the championship match.

"I'm glad all my friends who've been my teammates since freshman year got to play in the state final,'' said Corpus (3 kills, 10 digs). "When we were freshmen, we all talked about winning the title when we became seniors.''

"It was good to get everyone in,'' Barry said. "Everyone on our team is a good player, but we have so many good players that some people didn't always get a chance in our matches all season. For them to be able to play that much tonight, it was great.''
Heilman led the offense with 12 kills, while junior Christian Portera, who became a key player for the Bears as a front-row substitute for Sood during the playoff run, had 6 kills and 3 blocks. Portera also had the match-winning kill after the Bears (29-2) had missed two chances at match point. With East Brunswick leading 24-20, Heilman and middle Alex Rigley (4 kills) both had errors - Heilman hit wide and Rigley hit long - before outside hitter Portera put the game away off a set from Barry (29 assists).

"Obviously, I'm going to go to Travis first in that situation, he's our most dominating hitter,'' Barry said. "But I set him too far in and he had to hit on too much of an angle. Then I set Alex too high and he waffled it. Then I went to Christian, and thankfully he put it down. It was nerve-wracking at the end of that game, I was definitely nervous, I didn't want to go three games.''

"I just hit it like I always hit it,'' said Portera, who had played middle, sharing time with Rigley, prior to the state tournament. "Kyle had set Travis and Alex the two previous plays, so I was pretty sure he was going to set me on that one.''

Even with the errors, Corpus knew the end was inevitable.

"We had a nice passing rhythm,'' he said. "We had three perfect passes, it was bound to happen.''
Matt Whitford led St. Peters with 11 kills, while middles Miles McCann and Nick DeBenedictis each had four. Al Yasneski had 7 digs and libero Kevin McNerney had 11 digs.

It was the Marauders' defense that kept them in the games.

"We played our hearts out,'' Whitford said. "We watched film of their win over Southern on Wednesday, so we knew what was coming. We wanted to put up a good block but we didn't get a lot. But we also were able to position our defense in the right spots.''

East Brunswick won its sixth title, and first since 2004. St. Peters (31-8) had beaten Hudson County rival Bayonne in the NJSIAA north final on Wednesday to earn the school's first state final appearance.

"Our main goal was winning the north championship,'' Whitford said. "We went into this game just trying to do our best, have some fun, and if we won, great. We wanted to start out strong and see what we could do.''

It was in that 2004 championship that Rutz set the precedent that he would play all his seniors in state championship matches. That year, Saif Kawash made a contribution off the bench in the Bears' victory over Fair Lawn.

"I discussed it with (assistant) coach (Anthony) Alexander, that I wanted all the seniors to play,'' Rutz said. "In 2004, all the seniors played regularly except one (Kawash), and when we got to the final, we put him in and he got a big block, and also made a defensive play that we converted for a point. Those kids all worked hard all year, they deserve to play too. This is something I plan to keep trying to do - unless there's a time when we have like 12 seniors.''