The Belleville baseball, softball and boys volleyball teams found out their seed in their respective tournaments and the volleyball team led the way with a second seed.
For many of the tournaments this is the first year for play-in rounds. In the past the tournaments just had the teams square off with the top seeds playing every round.
The boys volleyball and baseball have a bye in the play-in round. The volleyball team is only behind top-seeded Livingston in their Essex County Tournament. The Bucs will face the winner of the Millburn/Golda Och matchup in the quarterfinals.
For baseball in the GNT, the Bucs are the 17th seed and take on the winner of Golda Och-St. Benedict in the first round.
The Belleville softball team is the 10th seed in the ECT and will travel to seventh-seeded West Essex. The game is expected to be played on May 7 in late afternoon.
Softball
The Belleville softball team ended a three-game losing streak on Tuesday with a convincing 9-1 victory over Millburn at home.
The Lady Bucs jumped out to a 5-0 lead after two innings and pulled away in the end after losses to West Essex (5-2 on April 15), West Orange (7-1 on April 20) Montclair (3-2 on April 21).
Against the Lady Millers Belleville put it all together, led by pitcher FrankieAnn Fontana who fired a two-hitter, while several Lady Bucs contributed offensively, led by senior Jessica Benacquista, who had five RBI along with two runs and a pair of hits. Michelle Knafo and Vanessa Gomez had three hits each while Gomez scored three times and Knafo contributed a pair of RBI.
With the victory Belleville improved to 6-4 on the season.
The toughest recent loss came at Montclair where the Lady Mounties scored a run in the bottom of the seventh inning to suffer the Super Essex Conference matchup.
Volleyball
The Bucs four-match winning streak was stopped on Monday as they fell 2-1 at home to Harrison, 18-25, 25-17, 22-25.
In the loss to the Blue Tide, Julian Rodriguez led Belleville with eight kills while Carl Loroco chipped in 18 digs. Luigi Zanoria set up the Bucs offense with 22 assists.
The Belleville defense could not contain the Harrison duo of Chris Osiecki and Rahim Douelfakar, who combined for 23 kills.
Belleville head coach Chris Terranova said he did not want to make excuses, but the team had not been together since the straight set victory over Clifton on April 21. “We were rusty in that first game,” said Terranova. “We knew they were a good team and that the team that made the least amount of mistakes was going to win.”
For the volleyball team, if they win their quarterfinal match, the semifinals will be played at Bloomfield High School on May 7 and the final is the following Saturday May 14 in Livingston.
Belleville defeated Clifton on the road in two straight sets, 25-18 and 25-17.
It was a balanced offensive attack by the Bucs led by Orlando Andrade with nine kills and four digs. Rodriguez added six kills. Laroco chipped in 14 digs while Luigi Zanoria added 21 assists.
Baseball
It has been a mixed bag recently for the Belleville Bucs, who defeated Irvington, 21-0, on April 20 and then lost, 13-1 at West Orange on April 23. The Bucs were 4-6 as of the end of last week.
Against Irvington the Bucs brought the sticks out and scored 13 times in the top of the third inning to put away the Jaguars. Gabe Rivera had the big hit of the third inning with a grand-slam home run. The senior third baseman collected six RBI. Josh Caba also did it on the mound by firing a complete game one hitter as the game was ended after five innings because of the 10-run rule.
Against West Orange the Belleville offense could not figure out Mountaineers pitcher Adam Miller, who allowed only three hits off the bats of the Bucs. The lone Belleville run came in the fourth inning. The Bucs though got themselves behind the 8-ball from the start as West Orange scored six runs in the first inning and five more in the second inning.
