Volleyball: East Brunswick wins GMCT
EDISON - After one of Jordyn Horowitz’s volleyball power shots that paralyzes opponents, the East Brunswick High School junior doesn’t do much celebrating. No fist pumps. No wild screaming. Just a quick smile and back to work.
“I try to keep my composure because I still know that we have to get a lot more points,” she said.
Saturday, the top-seeded Bears had to sweat a little against No. 2 Colonia in the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament final. In the end, they were all celebrating. East Brunswick lost the first set, but rallied for a 21-25, 25-19, 25-15 win at host J.P. Stevens.
It wasn’t a surprise that it was close. The teams split during the regular season. Add in the Bears (23-2) were playing without two starters who got injured doing the week, and even head coach Christian Portera admitted he had some doubts.
“I’m proud of these girls, because with a couple injuries like that, sometimes some of the girls tend to fold,” he said. “And sometimes they tend to take it as, ‘All right, now we can’t win because we lost those girls.’ But these girls continued to fight. The next girl in line stepped up and really pushed hard in order to win.”
Leyna Abrahams, the starting middle, broke her thumb in practice and Celina Zhou, the opposite hitter, injured her ankle in Thursday’s semifinal win over Monroe. Enter Levanya Collapancheri (2 kills, 2 blocks) replacing Abrahams and Kayla Benesz (9 assists, 5 digs, 2 kills) in for Zhou.
Both played with composure, but it was the Bears’ two All-GMC players that led the way. Samantha Balsamo added 17 assists and nine digs, and Horowitz had 16 kills, 16 digs an ace and a block.
“We really worked together as a team,” Horowitz said. “We all came together and worked as one rather than six people on the court. We really worked hard this season and it showed in this game.”
In the first game, East Brunswick went on a 6-0 run to take a 14-11 lead. Colonia (21-4) came back, but didn’t lead until the end. Trailing 21-20, the Patriots’ Mackenzie Williams came up with three winning shots as her team finished it 25-21. For the afternoon, Colonia’s Amarah Ellahi made several diving shots to keep rallies alive and Manuela Martinez contributed crowd-pleasing power shots.
In the second set, Colonia jumped to a 3-0 lead and was in charge until the Bears took a 12-11 advantage and then closed out the game 25-19. Of East Brunswick’s last five points, Horowitz had four strong shots that Colonia couldn’t handle.
“I’m really proud that they didn’t give up after game one,” Portera said. “It’s real easy for a team, especially a high school team, after losing game one to kind of back down. … And they didn’t do that. They fought hard in game two. They came back out, fought even harder in game three. They had their head in the game. I just couldn’t be more prouder of this team. They worked really hard for this. And the win says it all.”
In the final set, the Bears led the entire way after taking a 4-3 lead. After falling behind 7-3, Colonia could only cut the deficit to four points. East Brunswick closed it out with Horowitz again taking control down the stretch. In the three games, she combined deft touch shots with one-handed power booms.
“She’s the big powerhouse of the team,” Portera said. “We try to do our best to move the ball around as much as we can. Try to make it harder for the other team to play defense. But she stepped up her game. We gave her the ball and she did what she had to do. She put the ball away, just like I expected her to do.”
After the players received their medals, they sung happy birthday to Emilie Chinchar (4 kills, 3 blocks, 2 digs) as all flashed smiles.
“We do a lot of team bonding,” Horowitz said, “so I think that helped with everyone.”