Vikings volleyball team hoping success repeats
South Brunswick girls coming off
best season ever

BY GEORGE ALBANO
Staff Writer

It really wouldn’t be fair to expect the South Brunswick High School girls volleyball team to repeat the kind of season it had last year.

After all, the Vikings enjoyed their best season ever in 2003 when they went 16-9 and qualified for the state tournament for the first time in the history of the program. In fact, it was the first winning season ever for the SBHS girls volleyball program.

“It was our breakout year,” said head coach Nancy McDonald, whose team also made it to the GMC semifinals. “We had an all-senior lineup and a lot of the girls played together for four years. Last season was the year we had been building for. That was the year they pointed to.

“Now it’s on to a new year.”

Especially since most of the key players from that talented team graduated.

But while maybe we shouldn’t expect another season quite like last year, at the same time don’t expect the Vikings to completely fall off the face of the Earth, either.

Besides, now that it’s had a taste of success, this year’s South Brunswick team wants to come back for more.

“Graduation hit us in the way of experience,” McDonald, now in her seventh season, said, “but I still have seven returning seniors, most of whom came off the bench for us last year as subs and played limited time, and a couple of them played JV.

“But some of them have been in the volleyball program for three years; they just haven’t been on the court at the same time. So it’s not really a new team, just a new team playing together.”

In fact, the Vikings already showed they have the makings of another successful season when they swept their season-opening match from Piscataway last Friday in two straight games. They then lost a close 2-1 match to J.P. Stevens on Monday to take a 1-1 record into Wednesday’s home match against Mother Seton.

“Against J.P. Stevens, we seemed a little flat in the first game and not communicating, and we lost,” McDonald pointed out. “It was our first home match, and you had all the hoopla that goes with that and playing in front of your friends. I think we just had the first-home-game jitters.

“Then they pulled it together and played really well in the second game, and in the third game we hung in there the first 10 or 15 points and were only behind by one or two points. But J.P. played a really steady game and forced us to make some errors, which allowed them to pull away, and we couldn’t catch them.”

Still, McDonald liked a lot of what she saw from her team in their first two matches.

“It’s early and we still have a lot to work on,” she said. “But we’re communicating with each other better, and that’s pretty much what volleyball is at that level. You have to trust each other and communicate.”

Three players who are doing that are senior tri-captains Courtney Dwyer, Kristen Fortunato and Sara Koenig. Dwyer, who plays the middle and is a third-year varsity player.

“She’s really the only one with any returning experience,” McDonald noted.

Meanwhile, Fortunato and Koenig, both outside hitters, were on varsity last season but saw limited time coming off the bench.

Another senior who’s starting is setter Katie Kokoszka, who’s back after missing all of last year while still healing from rotator cuff surgery she had as a sophomore.

Rounding out the starting lineup are two girls who played JV last year, sophomore Jordan Consossori and 6-foot junior Janelle Payne, a member of the girls basketball team who came out for volleyball for the first time last year.

“She’s really improved,” McDonald said of Payne.

Besides Consossori, two more sophomores who will see plenty of time are middle hitter Nikki Weisse and outside hitter April Thomas. Both played JV last year but will sub off the varsity bench this season.

Three other seniors who should provide more depth are backup setter Sandy Moorhouse and defensive specialists Katie Ewers and Amy Elhanshary. All three played mostly JV a year ago, although Ewers subbed occasionally on varsity while Moorhouse was on the varsity bench.

A pair of juniors who should also help after missing all of last year with knee injuries are Lauren Ellis in the middle and Vanessa Cruz at outside hitter.

And it’s also no coincidence that last year’s winning season brought added interest in the girls volleyball. In fact, with 33 total girls in the program, McDonald was able to start a freshman team for the first time. So, the future looks pretty bright.

The present doesn’t look too bad, either.

“I think we should be a winning team again,” McDonald said. “We’ve got the base and foundation to have another winning team. It all depends on how other teams in our conference are. There doesn’t seem to be any one dominating team this season. East Brunswick and Old Bridge are usually two top teams, but I think we’re gonna be competitive with those teams this year, and we’ll see what happens.

“But our girls believe,” she added. “From day one, they believe they can win and be just as good as last year. They have a real confidence about them to be successful.”

And, who knows? Maybe a repeat of last year isn’t completely out of the question.