Bayonne defeats St. Peters

By Fred Siegle

BAYONNE - Who's the top team in Hudson County, and maybe all of North Jersey? We'll have to wait until tournament time to find out.

Bayonne, No. 5 in the PowerZonevb.com state rankings, beat No. 4 St. Peters, 25-19, 16-25, 25-19, on Monday to even their season series at 1-1. They're likely to meet again in the county tournament final, and also could meet again somewhere in the NJSIAA North Jersey section playoffs.

"If we didn't win this one, they would have had too much of the upper hand for the championship games,'' said Bayonne's Danny Kochanski, anticipating that the two teams would meet again in both the county and North Jersey tournament finals, the same as last year. (Bayonne won the county title, St. Peter's won the North Jersey crown.)

"It's not necessarily a bad thing that we lost today, as long as it gives us more fire for the county tournament,'' said St. Peter's Al Yasneski. "I think we came in overconfident today.''

Senior Kochanski led Bayonne with 12 kills and 6 blocks, while junior Patryk Rujznica had 7 kills and 5 blocks. Senior Krys Bogdan had 5 kills and junior Mike Kucza had 5 kills, 3 aces, and 10 digs. Setter Nick Stanlaw had 23 assists.

The Bees survived a scare in the third game when senior right side Coco Ostorga had to leave the game after turning his ankle. But sophomore Rich Boyle filled his spot for several plays while he got his ankle taped, and Bayonne led when Ostorga returned.

"I rolled the ankle when I landed on Peter's (Jimenez, of St. Peter's), foot,'' Ostorga said. "But Rich really stepped up. Our team still played well, they didn't let it effect them. Our young players stepped up today, all Krys, Danny and I had to do was play our game. Pat and Mike both had good games.''

Yasneski led St. Peters with 14 kills and 12 digs, while Jake Blicharz had 13 kills and 16 assists and Miles McCann contributed 10 kills.

"We really didn't pass the ball well, we never really got Miles going,'' Yasneski said. "We didn't block well either, all their kills were tools off the block. Today really wasn't our best, but we still took them to three games, so I guess that was good.''

A key point in the third game came when a Bayonne player shanked a pass toward the wall alongside the court, but Kucza chased it down and bumped it back to the court, where libero Kevin "Pookie'' Muranda bumped the ball deep to St. Peter's side, and the Marauders misplayed it to give the Bees the point and a 20-16 lead.

"Plays like that went against us, plus we just didn't play smart,'' Yasneski said. "Even our free-ball passing was off.''

Both teams will now prepare to play against the top teams from around the state this Saturday at the St. Joes Super Six Showcase. Both teams will play No.1 St. Joseph's, No. 2 Southern, No. 3 East Brunswick, and No. 9 Eastern there.
"We've got a couple practices this week and we really have to use them to focus on those games,'' Yasneski said.

"We're just going to go in there and show that we're one of the best teams,'' Kochanski said.