Old Tappan advances with win over Glen Rock

OLD TAPPAN -- The Golden Knights shook off a sub-par first set to best Glen Rock, 3-0 (25-23, 25-13, 25-14) in the Bergen County Women's Coaches Association Round of 16 volleyball tournament on Saturday.

The Panthers faced the team that had won the county and state tournaments while going undefeated in 2024. But Glen Rock was great in the first set, matching the Golden Knights point for point.

The score was tied on 10 occasions with neither team leading by more than 4 points at any time. Glen Rock took its first lead of the game, 9-8, with a 4-0 run to erase an 8-5 lead.

Panthers senior outside hitter Teresa Sapienza began the comeback by smacking a kill to give the serve back to the Panthers and junior libero Erin Nerona followed with a service ace. When senior middle blocker Avery Schwartz followed with a successful block Glen Rock tied the score 8-all. An unsuccessful block by Old Tappan gave the Panthers their first lead of the match and when the Golden Knights made an attack error and Nerona tallied a second ace, Glen Rock had an 11-8 lead, which prompted Old Tappan to call a timeout.

When play resumed another attack error by the Knights increased the Panthers lead but OT junior setter Joley Giordano halted the rally with a quick kill. The teams traded points with a kill by Schwartz, who led Glen Rock with 9 kills in the match, and a kill by Knights sophomore middle blocker Nadine Whaley, who finished with 6 kills and 3 blocks for Old Tappan.

Golden Knights senior libero, Adriana Bryan, stepped to the service line and reeled off 6 straight service winners to give OT a 16-14 lead. During Bryan's run Whaley contributed 2 kills and a block, sophomore outside hitter Phoebe Malady belted a kill and senior opposite hitter Eva Curko scored with a blocked shot along the way. But Schwartz came through for the Panthers, ending the Knights run with a kill. From there the teams traded points, and the score was tied six times.

"They are a really good defensive team," Curko said of the Panthers. "They were diving after every ball and what we had to adjust to was looking for open spots on the court and going out of our comfort zone to find those spots."

"Their libero, (Nerona,) picked up a lot," added Bryan. "Her defense on hard swings and tips - she was doing great things out there - and it was a credit to her. During timeouts we said, 'stay away from her.' Their defense did a great job."

Glen Rock took a 23-22 lead but Knights junior outside hitter Bianca Benasillo struck a well-placed kill to earn a side-out and tie the game one last time. It was Bryan's turn to serve and she did not disappoint. Neither did Curko, who blasted a kill to give Old Tappan a set point and banged home another kill for the 25-23 win.

"I work a lot on my service," said Bryan. "I take a lot of pride in it. Last year it was mainly my job just getting back there and serving. I'm working on consecutively serving tough and in. Sometimes I throw an easy one in there to gain confidence.Today we were up by a lot so I really went for it."

"No matter who it is [scoring]," said Curko, "those exciting kills and points really get the whole team excited. My motivation is to get the next point for my team and help the team move forward any way I can. Getting those high energy points is something that is very important to us and it helps us get our energy higher and more motivated."

That motivation carried into the second set. Schwartz had just given Glen Rock a 5-3 lead when Knights senior outside hitter Julia Whaley scored 4 straight points to give Old Tappan the lead for good. First, she hammered a kill, then she tallied with a perfect placement, scored on a block and pounded the ball for a 7-5 lead. After the Panthers committed an attack error Julia Whaley walloped another winner to compel Glen Rock to call timeout.

Later, Julia Whaley smacked a kill to put the Knights up 11-7 and then she stepped to the service line. Seven service winners later Old Tappan led, 18-7 and they coasted to the 25-13 win to go up 2-0 in the match.

"It's very nice for our setter Joley (Giordano) to have so many options," said Curko, who finished with 9 kills, 9 digs, 1 assist and a service ace. "Each and every hitter did a great job of mixing up their shots today and going out and swinging hard because we know we can put the ball away. We did a good job of getting that confidence. Having all our hitters available and having so many options to set is such a good thing for Joley to have. As a setter you're confident that no matter who you set it to they have the confidence in themselves to put the ball away."

"Joley was connecting with them and we're starting to build more confidence," Old Tappan coach Melissa Landeck said. "We played pretty well today and we have even more in us. We've battled injuries. We're still not 100 percent but we're a lot closer than we've been in a long time. We haven't scratched the surface yet. We're still a work in progress to be the best we can possibly be in 2025. It takes time."

Old Tappan grabbed a 4-3 lead early in the third set and never trailed again. Julia Whaley belted 7 of her game high 17 kills, including the match point, in that third set.

"Glen Rock is a good team," said Landeck. "There's a reason why their record is what it is. They're well-coached, they're aggressive offensively. I thought they served well and they executed in all facets of the game. We knew today was going to be a challenge so I'm just proud of the girls and the way they responded and took the initial threat and were able to punch back."

"We've been making a lot of adjustments [on defense,]" said Bryan. "[Coach] Landeck has been switching it up for us. So we switched the libero jersey (from junior Desi Malafis to Bryan). We have a lot of confidence in each other so it wasn't a huge adjustment for us because we always connect with each other."

Six different Old Tappan players contributed points in the match. Benasillo finished with 10 kills and a block, Bryan had 9 digs, Malafis added 7 digs and Giordano had 3 kills, 5 digs and distributed an impressive 38 assists.

"It's really nice," said Bryan. "As a defender knowing we have 5 or 6 people who can put the ball away and we have a very deep bench - I can trust any one of them to come in and do something with the ball to get a kill. Everybody is starting to play smart. I know they're not always going to hammer the ball. They all have nice court vision. It's a blessing to have all of that."

Glen Rock did a great job on defense, as Nerona scooped 14 digs and distributed 2 assists. Junior defensive specialist Rachel Park had 10 digs and 3 assists. Senior setter Ella Torsiello dished 19 assists and scooped 5 digs. Sapienza and senior Yuka Bertram each had 4 kills and combined for 13 digs. Senior Audrey Kennedy had 5 kills, 1 block and 7 digs.

"I think this gave the whole team, including me, a lot of confidence," said Bryan. "Glen Rock was playing great. They have good hitters. Teams are going to come after us because we are trying to defend something. This game gave us a lot of confidence and we all had a lot of fun competing today."

"This is our first county game," Curko said, "and it's normal to have a few first game jitters in our first set and we kind of showed that on our serve-receive, our defense and our hitting. I think we did a really good job of cleaning it up in the second and third sets. Our trust really improved and that comes down to every day in practice, having each other's backs in high pressure moments. I think that really paid off in this game."