By: Tyler Dey
After topping Piscataway, 2-1, in a home match at the end of last month, the South Brunswick High School boys volleyball team had hopes of making a push at the end of the season against some of the lower teams in the Greater Middlesex Conference.
The Vikings stood at 2-5, and though three matches remained against state powers St. Joseph and East Brunswick, winnable contests against J.P. Stevens, Old Bridge and Edison were also on the slate. A couple of wins could keep South Brunswick from facing one of the two GMC powerhouses in the first round.
But it wasn’t to be. The victory against Piscataway would turn out to be the last for the Vikings in their inaugural season, which ended Friday with a 2-0 sweep (15-2, 15-5) at the hands of East Brunswick in the first round of the GMC Tournament.
South Brunswick (2-14) was the seventh and last seed in the tournament, and so it drew the second-seeded Bears, which had swept a doubleheader from the Vikings earlier in the season. Things were made even more difficult when East Brunswick’s top player, Greg Hunter, returned from a bout with mono a week earlier.
"We really struggled the whole time," coach Steve Dentler said. "They had just gotten back on of their best players, and they pass extremely well. With him back their lineup is a lot stronger. We just didn’t have the horses to compete."
Junior Tom Lanza led South Brunswick with four kills, while classmate Mark Mangual recorded nine digs.
With the prospect of taking on the state’s top-ranked team in a tournament setting with a first-year program struggling to get wins, Dentler dug into the archives to find inspirational material for his squad.
"Before the match I went through a history of major upsets in sports: The ’69 Mets, the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, the 1950 U.S. World Cup team beating England," Dentler said. "They were not supposed to be where they were. If we had beaten EB at EB in a tourney game, it would have been a huge shock to the volleyball community here."
Unfortunately for the Vikings, this time Goliath slayed David.
"I think our guys went in (to the match) a little in awe (of East Brunswick), but that’s not unexpected," Dentler said. "When you play a game . . . a high school kid is not going to be able to not think about that."

