June 4, 2010
St. Peter's Prep falls in final
Senior John Armstrong had 11 kills for St. Peter's Prep yesterday.
By Jason Bernstein
Editorial Director
HILLSBOROUGH – As each St. Peter’s Prep player was announced to the crowd and honored for their second place performance, the reaction for most of the recipients for their award was the same –disgust and disappointment.
One-by-one they were called up in recognition, but few could even bear to look at the certificate handed to them. Instead they were left to sit and watch opposing Southern Regional collect the state championship trophy they had wanted and had once again eluded Prep.
For the fourth-consecutive season, the Marauders’ season ended with a loss in the NJSIAA title game as they dropped a 25-21, 23-25, 17-25 decision to Southern last night at Hillsborough High School.
“The better team came out and won today,” said St. Peter’s Prep coach Don Guide, calling it the best team he’s coached since taking over the program. “I think we played okay, but not good enough to win tonight.
“This is a great team. And a great team beat us.”
Early on, it appeared that this would be different for the top-ranked Marauders (29-3). After being swept by the second-ranked Rams (34-6) in last year’s title match, St. Peter’s started off strong. A pair of Parker Kolodka aces and three kills from Kenny Walter sparked a 7-2 Marauder run late in the opening game gave Prep the first game and an early lead.
The Marauders had continued to be in control, building up a 17-14 lead in the second until it all started to come apart for the Jersey City squad. Southern ripped off six consecutive points, three coming off Prep errors, to take their first lead of the game at 20-17.
Kills from John Armstrong and Kolodka would allow the Marauders to tie it 21-all and again at 23-23. But Southern would close out the game with a Jeff Jones kill and a Ryan Logue block and even it up at 1-apiece.
“I think things started changing in the second set,” Guide said. “We had the game and then we relaxed a little bit and we never got the passing back again. We never passed well after that.”
Prep was unable to recover in the third as the Rams ripped off six points in a row to take an 8-3 lead behind two kills and a block from Andrew Concepcion.
The Marauders were never able to cut the deficit to less than two points and Southern would dash Prep’s title hopes with an 8-2 run to end the match.
Jones led the Rams with 14 kills, six of them coming in the third. Drew Maxwell added 10 kills and three digs and Concepcion had four kills, three blocks and three digs. Rob Solorzano and Brian Gleason added 17 and nine digs respectively. Ryan Logue had 10 assists and three kills.
Walter led St. Peter’s Prep with 15 kills. Armstrong added 11 kills and Parker Kolodka had eight kills and three aces. Mike Blicharz had 29 assists and three digs and Alex Cogott added 20 digs in what was the final match for the quintet of senior starters.
Lorenzo Samin, the lone junior starter added two kills and two blocks. After the match, Samin and fellow junior Alexander Perez gathered up the rest of the underclassmen for a huddle and yelled that they would back here again next year.
“That’s all I told them,” Samin said. “Pick up their heads and we got this next year. We’ve got to work to get there and we’ll be fine. We’ll be back.
“It’s a learning experience. We just have to learn off this. Use it as experience and a fire to get back here again.”
Junior Lorenzo Samin (2 kills, 2 blocks) is the lone returning starter for Prep.
1st |
2nd |
3rd |
|
| Southern Regional Rams (34-6) | 21 |
25 |
25 |
| St. Peter's Prep Marauders (29-3) | 25 |
25 |
17 |