On April 21st, the Colonia Boys JV Volleyball team beat North Brunswick’s JV team in two sets, both games were close, however Colonia was able to generate enough momentum to beat a great team.
The JV Boys Volleyball team has been on a winning streak, they’ve had many wins and very few losses, North Brunswick also has a very impressive team, previous to the JV game the Colonia High School Varsity Volleyball team was beaten by North Brunswick’s varsity team. This may have been intimidating for the players on Colonia as several of the players on varsity also played down on JV.
A possible reason Colonia was able to win was because of two of Colonia’s hitters, Brian Hendricks and Matt Zwiebel. Both hitters got several kills on North Brunswick, they seemed to be unstoppable, they were only held back by the few instances where they hit the net. However North Brunswick was able to keep the game close because their hitters were equally as good, what kept North Brunswick from scoring however wasn’t hitting the net, but hitting it out of bounds, which took good attentiveness by Colonia to notice.
Another factor that helped Colonia win was Kyle Kirejevas, the libero saved what many thought would be points for North Brunswick by using a maneuver called a “dig”, which is where a player sticks out an appendage in a last effort to keep the ball from hitting the floor. Kirejevasnpossibly saved the game in the second set when Colonia needed one more point to win, North Brunswick served what was thought to be an ace(a kill from a serve) where Kirejevas saved the ball and passed it upwards giving Colonia a chance to score which they seized. Without Kirejevas, someone else may have not made that save and ended up giving North Brunswick a chance to win in a third set.
Matt Scala also attributes to the success of Colonia, his passes constantly set up the hitters for kills. These passes by Matt were executed perfectly, every time Scala passed, a hit was executed and took amazing blocks and digs to stop them. Scala’s performance continuously got better and better, as the game went on Scala stayed consistent, and even got better passes that resulted in more kills.
The first set of the game was less stressful to watch than the second set. Colonia stayed in the lead most of the time and it only got closer as the set ended, which perhaps hinted at New Brunswick’s comeback. In the second set New Brunswick captured a lead, and it look like it was going to end in a third set. Despite this Colonia stayed in the game, constantly wavering between losing, tying the game, and winning. Near the end it was so close Colonia needed to score an extra point to win because the game was dangerously close, but Colonia was able to pull through ending the set 26-24.
