St. Joes wins Bloomfield Tourney; Southern beats No. 1 EB

A lot of volleyball on Saturday, here's some of the highlights. (I was at the Bloomfield Tournament).

St. Josephs, No. 2 in the Powerzonevb.com state rankings (and the new No. 1 team when the new top 10 comes out on sunday/monday) won the Bloomfield Tournament, beating No. 4 St. Peters Prep 25-18, 23-25, 25-14 in the championship match.

Right side Marcin Midura led the Falcons with 14 kills and 3 aces, while middle Paul Konapacki had 9 kills and middle Bobby O'Grady had 4 kills and 3 blocks.

The Falcons went undefeated in pool play, winning two games each against CBA, Watchung Hills, Bloomfield and Hackensack. CBA finished second in the pool. The format enabled coach Miguel Cabrita to use his entire team at some point, and he also experimented with starters playing different positions.

"Everybody played today at some point,'' Cabrita said. "That's one of the things tournaments allow you to do. We had some peaks and valleys, but overall I was pleased.''

The loss in the second game was definitely one of the valleys.

"We made a lot of mistakes, we pretty much saved them all up through the day for that one game,'' Cabrita said. "But the good part was we lost the game, but we were able to come out of it and play well in the third game. We proved we could battle back.''

St. Joes beat Don Bosco, which had finished second, behind St. Peters, in the other pool, 25-14 in the semifinals. Konapacki had 8 kills, Midura had 5, and Zeyad Loubnan chipped in two kills and a block.

St. Peters beat CBA 25-21 in the semifinals. Against St. Joes, Miles McCann had 13 kills, Jake Blicharz had 8, Al Yesneski had 7, and Peter Jimenez added 4. In the win over CBA, McCann and Yesneski each had 3 kills.

The Marauders won their pool based on head-to-head point differential after splitting two games with Don Bosco. They had beaten Bosco 25-18, and lost 25-23. In that game, they trailed 23-17 and 24-21 but nearly came back with Blicarz leading the way with 4 kills during the stretch.

"This was good for us, playing a team like that (St. Joes) and taking them to three games,'' St. Peters coach Don Guide said. ''They had a hard time stopping our top players. Our passing broke down a little though, and we weren't able to get the ball to those guys.''

Jon Rohan and Ryan Gelenitis each had 3 kills for CBA in the loss to St. Peters. Rohan also had 3 blocks, while Gelenitis had 2.
JP Stevens, which had been in the pool play section with Don Bosco and St. Peters (along with Passaic and Roselle Catholic, won the Silver Division title, beating Roselle Catholic 25-21 in the final. Roselle Catholic beat Bloomfield 29-27 in the semis, and JP beat Hackensack 25-19 in the Silver semis.

SOUTHERN BEATS NO. 1 EAST BRUNSWICK:

Southern beat East Brunswick, 25-17, 24-26, 25-20, with Ken Connolly leading the way with 12 kills and 3 blocks. James Mancini contributed 9 kills, while Dave Ambrose had 8 kills and 6 blocks. Eric Sharkey had 8 kills.

The Rams improved to 10-1 with the victory, while East Brunswick fell to 8-1.