Ferdesa Bauta may be coach Glenn Jansen’s finest recruit.” Coach Jansen recruited me my freshman season,” said the Colts Neck outside hitter. “I told him I was big into basketball and he told me that volleyball will help your jumping.”
So Bauta gave it a try figuring at worst it would help her on the basketball court. The move became a courtship between her and her new sport.
“I started to love it [volleyball],” she pointed out. “I like the teamwork. You can’t have just one good player. It starts with the passer and then the setter.”
Going into last week’s play, Bauta had record 175 kills for the Cougars, or 9.75 per match. No one else had even rung up 100.
“That’s huge,” said Jansen, referring to her kill average. “She’s the most prolific hitter in the Shore. She has been dominating.
“She has a combination of power and finesse,” he added.
Bauta is the Cougars’ go-to player, according to Jansen, and a big reason the club is 16-4 and Shore Conference A North Division champions for the second straight year.
“The first one is always the best,” noted Bauta. “Definitely, it [the 2007 title] is just as good.”
Colts Neck’s rise to a Shore power in volleyball is not by accident. It’s been from nothing less than dedication and hard work. The Cougars attended camps and participated in the Jersey Shore Volleyball League during the summer. As one of the tricaptains, Bauta has set the example for the underclassmen in her own quiet way.
She speaks loudly on the court with her kills. She knows that it is the equivalent of slam-dunk in basketball; it gets her team going.
But, velocity alone isn’t enough. Bauta said that placement is every bit as important and communication from teammates plays an important role there. She’s also the first to credit the Cougar passers and setters with making her such a force this year, most specifically, Christen Papasso, who leads the Shore Conference in assists (248).
Having achieved their first goal, the defense of their division title, the Cougars move on to their second goal, and that is to advance to this weekend’s Shore Conference Tournament (SCT) final. They lost in the semifinals last year.
The SCT begins Friday with first-round matches at the home court of the higher seeds (Colts Neck will be home as the No. 3 seed). The semifinals and final are at Southern Regional, the defending champion, on Saturday.
The state playoffs follow and the Cougars want to be the first Colts Neck team to win Central Jersey match.

