By: Rich Fisher
EDISON The South Brunswick High volleyball team entered this season with a history of improvement, but no championships.
It initially looked like the Vikings might not even get the improvement this year, as they lost seven seniors, including three three-year starters, from the 2003 squad. They weren’t really being considered an upper echelon team in Middlesex County by most outsiders.
But prior to the season, coach Nancy McDonald had a feeling about the up-and-coming players.
"They’re confident they can win," McDonald said in early September. "They’ve been there as a part of the program last year and they really know how to carry it on."
Carry it on? How about surpass what any South Brunswick team has ever done in seven years of varsity volleyball.
On Tuesday night, the Vikings defeated J.P. Stevens in two riveting games to cop its first Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament title. They finished 19-7, which marks the seventh consecutive year SBHS has set a school record for victories in a season.
"We have never gotten this far in volleyball, nobody thought we could do it because we lost all our seniors," said Kristen Fortunato, a senior tri-captain with Sara Koenig and Courtney Dwyer. "I’m ecstatic. The whole team is ecstatic. We knew we could do it."
Even at the beginning of the season?
"No," Fortunato said with a smile. "Well, I don’t know. We lost everybody, we knew from the beginning we had to work hard this season. We started to believe after we won a few games."
Sophomore Jordan Confessore was not counting anything out.
"Losing our seniors was definitely a big deal, they were great players," she said. "But in the back of my head I knew we could do it. All the people around us weren’t really sure we could win, that we wouldn’t have the same season as we had last year. We just came through and proved everybody wrong."
Koenig, one of the few players with varsity experience entering the season, admitted that a GMC title was a stretch in her mind during the preseason.
"We were a little doubtful," she said. "We were hoping to kind of maintain our record, keep it over .500. We were a little surprised we did this well. A lot of people were saying ‘This team lost everyone, they’re not that good.’
"But we were 4-0, something like that, and after that I thought we were a good team, we were playing together. I knew the more we played together, the better we’d get."
The leadership provided by Koenig, Dwyer and Fortunato also made a difference.
"The three captains have really wanted it to happen for them," said coach Nancy McDonald, who also gave kudos to her assistants, Bob Johnson and Sean Ruyman. "They knew it was their year and they really capitalized on it being their year. Courtney is more of the court captain out there, she turns and pumps her fist, gets the rest of them going. But they really do believe in each other, that’s what’s so great about this."
"I remember last year, all three of us captains would sit and discuss the players coming up from JV, and we said ‘We’re going to really have to work hard if we want to go far,’ and I think we did that," Dwyer said. "We had no idea we were going to come this far. We were just going to be happy if we made it to a .500 record."
One of the key elements in the Vikings surge was the steady improvement of underclassmen like Confessore, Nikki Weiss and, particularly, Janelle Payne.
Payne was only in her second season of playing volleyball, but became a dangerous blocker down the stretch.
"I started playing last year and I knew nothing about volleyball," Payne said. "Mrs. McDonald knew my dad from high school, she said I’m tall so I should play. That’s why I started.
"I think I’m kind of getting the hang of it. I have great coaches to help me, and great players. I’m just so happy I could be a part of this year’s season."
It was a season like no other.
Except for the fact there was more improvement, of course.
