HHS VOLLEYBALL PREVIEW
by John E. Powers, Sports Writer
The task for coach Todd Sudol and the Hillsborough High School girls’ volleyball team is to equal the milestones reached last year not bad considering the program is just in its fourth year of existence.
The Raiders finished 13-15, but did qualify for the state tournament. The girls were seeded 24th, but did knock off ninth-seed Colts Neck before being eliminated by eighth-ranked Cherokee.
Hillsborough will be young this year, having only three seniors returning in opposite and four-year player Sara DiClemente, setter Christina Galera and middle hitter and three-year player Lindsey Watts.
”Everybody else is new to the varsity,” Sudol said.
Outside hitter Lindsey Jandoli is the fourth senior on the roster, but she’s new to varsity play. Expected to make plenty of contributions this year are junior libero Cathy Meyer, junior middle hitter Megan Kumbatovic, sister of former Raider standout pitcher Rob, and junior outside hitter Meghan O’Reilly.
”Meyer anchors the defense and calls adjustments for the defense,” Sudol said.
Sophmore Christina Mehrtens will play middle and sophomore Margaret Gilroy, a catcher for the Raiders’ softball team, will be an outside hitter. Meyer and O’Reilly earned varsity volleyball letters last year.
The team will certainly miss the graduated Samantha Jackson and Patty Manhart and middle blocker Jessica Zivi, Shana Ramandi, Megan McGinley and Marjie Neijman.
”I’m really expecting a lot from Sara and Watts was strong in the middle last year and will do more this year,” Sudol said. “Christina is kind of like having a coach on the court. Sometimes we run plays that go through me and then she calls them out, and sometimes she’ll make a call.”
Hillsborough’s objectives are similar to last year. The Raiders would like to earn a winning record the team reached a season-high four games over .500 at 8-4 last year in early October. HHS would love to make a strong run at defending Somerset County Tournament champ Watchung Hills and qualify for the states. Hillsborough opened the 2006 season by beating Bridgewater-Raritan, something it had never done before.
”We want to repeat our third place finish or do even better,” Sudol said.
The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s cutoff date for making the states is Oct. 20.
”Hopefully we can pick off one of the very good teams we play,” said Sudol, whose team opened the season last Friday with a 2-0 loss to Bridgewater-Raritan, one of the schools he talks about. “We play five really tough teams and we’ll see them twice,” referring to Bridgewater-Raritan, North Hunterdon, Hunterdon Central, Watchung Hills and Voorhees.
Hillsborough was scheduled to play at Warren Hills this past Tuesday before playing host to Hunterdon Central Friday. The Raiders are scheduled to play in the 12-school Hackettstown tournament Saturday.
”We’re still young,” Sudol said. “We’re going to have a lot of kids playing for the first time.”