LAKEWOOD — The Howell Rebels bravely fought the inevitable in the Shore Conference Tournament finals. Howell senior star Brent Romano scored point after point, and his team held a three-point lead more than halfway through the first set, going head-to-head with The Shore's volleyball albatross, Southern Regional. The battle was fought. In the final stages of the game, despite the impending outcome, they fought hard and scored three points in a row.
Still, the 2-0 Southern win will be in the books as the Rams won their ninth straight Shore Conference men's volleyball title and 15th in the past 16 seasons. Although the program's victory seems inevitable, the work to reach that perfect state has been filled with momentary failures. And that's part of what makes the team great.
“That's the only thing I've been asking them the last few weeks is how we respond,” Southern coach Eric Maxwell said. “There's going to be a lot of mistakes as the game goes on. You can't let it be a second or third mistake. It happened — the next play. It's just a matter of the next play.”
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No matter how persistent Howell was, no matter how much momentum the team gained, it always felt like the next play was Southern's. Such sentiments are well-earned for a program that has won both the Men's Volleyball League and Women's Volleyball League titles in the past two seasons.
But that air of inevitability is earned through resiliency, and no player exemplified it more than Angelo Addiego in Thursday's Shore Conference finals. The senior missed last season due to injury, but in addition to his usual impressive passing, the setter made a key dig and a key ace in the second set, and his personal drive oozed through the entire team.
“I couldn't play last year because I broke my wrist,” Addiego said. “So this year, I feel like we've got to show the players what's going on. And we've got to lead by example to the younger players. Everything we're doing. It's always been for young players, so we're trying to get that across and trying to stay at the top.” ”
As usual, the Rams looked very comfortable at the top of the mountain and showed no signs of being shaken off.
Southern senior Angelo Addiego: “Once you play well, you take advantage of it.”
The semi-finals and finals were both played at Georgian Court University, and Southern quickly found their own against a quality St. John Vianney team who were the only Shore team to take a set from the Rams this season. He insisted. There was no such laxity this time, as Southern cruised to a quick 2-0 victory and won the second set 25-11.
Meanwhile, directly across from the gymnasium were the Howell and Freehold districts. The Rebels won the first and second sets 25-19 and 25-17, respectively, to take a 2-0 lead and set up the match. Southern defeated Howell 2-0 in the regular season, but it was a hard-fought second set in which the Rams won 25-23. At the heart of the tenacious Rebels is senior Brent Romano.
“He's tough,” Romano's Maxwell said. “We had to work hard in transition because we know that even if the ball comes back, they're going to go to him again.” “We did a great job tonight. He's going to make it. I don't know what he ended up with, but going into the game, I expect him to get 15 to 20 kills.” ”
After Howell led 16-13 in the first set, Southern scored six points to take the lead and win the set 25-22. The Rebels tied the second set 15-15, but ended up losing the second set 25-21 on a poor serve, making it a few points too many to pull off the upset. The Rams' depth, combined with the elite effort of their star seniors, was too much to overcome.
“We're always trying to be the best team defensively,” Addiego said. “It feels normal to me because we work on it in the gym all the time.”
Addiego's excellent defensive play was praised by top underclassman middle blockers Aiden Kulinich and Van Miller. Their presence posed enough of a challenge to contain Romano and Bryce Ferrandino's offensive power to some extent. And Southern senior Jack McKenna always got kills when his team needed them most, usually coming off great play from the setter.
“He's a great leader,” Addiego's Maxwell said. “Not just on the court as a setter, but just in general. In the locker room and stuff like that, the kids listen to him. They respect his knowledge of the game, they respect his ability level. That's why he speaks. “When,” they ask. “
In his role as a leader, he is just proud of the camaraderie within this year's group of players.
“Everyone on this team is my best friend,” Addiego said. “So we know how to encourage each other. We can criticize each other without being mean. And once we play well, it's a lot of momentum and we use it to our advantage. do.”
Rams 'get back to work' to defend state title, coach Eric Maxwell says
Southern had to replace some key seniors from last year's group, but has the look of a team that is peaking at the right time to defend its Group 4 state title. However, there will be fierce opposition from the winning teams.
The Rams are 23-2, with one loss coming against undefeated Old Bridge, and are likely to be the top seed in the playoff South. The Rams defeated Old Bridge 2-1 in last year's sectional final, handing the Knights their first loss of the 2023 season. And Howell could be looking to pull off an upset in Group 4 of the postseason.
“We're going to get back to work. This is a great win, but a short celebration,” Maxwell said. “Because this is not our ultimate goal. So tomorrow we're back there practicing, but we're already starting to look at the next direction.”
That road leads to Old Bridge, but the team has already been charting a path to that destination for more than a decade. It's hard to be a team that is expected to win without fail, and it's even harder to live up to expectations. And yet, this rum always does.
“It's almost like muscle memory in big moments like that,” Addiego said. “It just comes to us.”
