Girls teams place third at tournament
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Michael Adams and Joe Schweitzer founded the West Windsor Volleyball Club to give players a chance to play and improve closer to home.
Six years later, they have some of the top teams on the East Coast. At the Martin Luther King Tournament last weekend in Lancaster, Pa., both the clubs’ 16U and 17U girls teams finished third in their respective divisions.
”It’s good for them to know they can compete with the best of the best of USA Volleyball for their age group and do very well,” said Adams, who also coaches the West Windsor-Plainsboro High South boys and girls teams and another 16U team for the WWVBC.
The MLK Tournament was the first big tournament that the club played under the Garden Empire Volleyball Association/USA Volleyball umbrella. After five years as an AAU club, the WWVBC made the jump.
”We’ve been building slowly over the last six years,” said Schweitzer, who coaches the Princeton Day School girls team in addition to assisting Scott Reily with WWVBC’s bronze-medal 16U team. “Now this is something where we want to start contending in these tournaments all the time. This is a much bigger level, especially for the girls. They see bigger and better competition. This is where we want to be.”
The WWVBC fills a void for players from Central Jersey. The 17U team that won the bronze was made up of: Rachel Degnan of Princeton Junction, Amy Greenberger of West Windsor, Sabrina Jugo of Princeton, Jaime Mishkin of West Windsor, Devon Ngai of Cranbury, Vera Shulgina of Princeton Junction and Julia Yang of West Windsor. Nicole Gibbons, Hannah Jin of Princeton, Melissa Lichtman of West Windsor, Sasha Malinina of Plainsboro and Jessica Sesma are also on the 17U team.
”As far as a team, it’s the start of coming together,” said Michael Vajo Jr., coach of the 17U team with Paul Kadlubowski. “To see it happen so quickly is a great thing. The same thing with the 16s, and they’re more of a melting pot than our team.
”It starts with the defense,” he said of his team. “Their defense has been outstanding the last three years. Volleyball is a height sport. To have a team that doesn’t have a lot of height do so well, it comes down to other things. Their desire to succeed and their skills, especially their defense, have been outstanding.”
The 16U team consists of: Tori Brokaw, Tiffany Gagliardo of Cranbury, Jamie Kazar, Kerriann Manziano, Maggie Preston, Jennifer Rabbino of West Windsor, Brianne Sabino of West Windsor, Kelsey Schuster, Nikki Senopoulos of Plainsboro and Casey Shea.
”It’s a very good sign,” said Reily of the 17s success. “We’ve only practiced a little over a month. We have kids from Freehold, from West Windsor North and South and South Brunswick and East Brunswick. To come together and take third place out of 40 teams was a great start.
”We communicated very well. Our passing was very good. Since our passing was good, we could run our offense. Mainly, the girls are very supportive of each other. If one makes a mistake, their teammates are right there to say, get the next one. It keeps the morale from dipping. Our other coach, Joe, saw that as well.”
Schweitzer, though, never saw a team perform as well as it did against such a talented pool as the 16s faced at the MLK Tournament. After emerging from pool play, they advanced through match play into the single-elimination tournament, where the 16s topped another New Jersey-based team, Allegro, on their way to third place.
”They pull from all over the state,” Schweitzer said of Allegro. “There’s little representation from the middle of the state, which we want to fill.
”We beat the Allegro team in the first round of the gold bracket. They’re a national team. I would have to say that of the teams I’ve had, that was the biggest win we’ve ever had.”
That says plenty. When the WWVBC began, it had just four teams — two girls and two boys — and Schweitzer coached them all. They succeeded at their level.
”There are some really good AAU teams, too,” Adams said, “and our teams have been very successful. They basically finished in the top five in every tournament they went to.”
The WWVBC has jumped to a new level this year. It has six teams and a pool of coaches that have 20-plus years of playing and plenty of high-level coaching accolades. They practice twice per week at WW-P South or at Grover Middle School, and that practice paid off at their biggest tournament to date.
”I foresee it invoking confidence in the players for future tournaments,” Vajo said. “The competition that they played against was quite a fierce field, so to beat the teams they beat and the caliber of teams they beat can only provide more confidence the next time they go out against a good team and help them realize they can do this.”
It also opens some eyes to the WWVBC as a club that is attempting to establish itself as a serious contender regardless of the tournament. The club will play in eight to 10 smaller tournaments before heading to a Memorial Day weekend tournament at Penn State this spring.
”I thought we would do well,” Schweitzer said. “This is a great collection of girls. This team has bonded together quicker than any other group I’ve had. I expect them to do well.
”We will not be able to go into a tournament and sneak by anybody. Maybe because it was our first year playing at this level, it was, ‘WWVBC who?’ That’s over now.”
It’s just what the founders were hoping for when they started the. Area players are using a closer option for the chance to prove themselves at the highest possible level.
”We thought as coaches that our teams could compete at that level,” Reily said. “We wanted to challenge them. We were pleasantly surprised they did this well this soon. To do this well was a surprise and a credit to our club.”