Tough Day for Bucs at ECT Final

LIVINGSTON - There was plenty of optimism on the part of Belleville boys volleyball heading into Saturday's Essex County Tournament.
    It was your basic titanic battle between the second-seeded Bucs against the top-seeded Lancers on the Livingston floor.
    And it was also the third battle between the two Essex County rivals, with the Lancers winning the first two matches during the regular season between the top teams in the Super Essex Conference American division.
    And the two teams had just faced each other on a couple of days before the ECT final.
    Plus Belleville head coach Chris Terranova and the team were bolstered by Wednesday's match, where the Bucs battled tooth and nail with Livingston.
    While Belleville lost in two straight games, they were extremely close, 25-23 and 25-23,  giving the Bucs some momentum heading into the ECT final.
    But Belleville could not take that momentum throughout each game as they dropped the county final, 25-12, 25-11 Saturday. The Bucs also dropped to 16-8 on the season.

    The Belleville head coach though later said that the team, which is dominated by juniors, can use this in future matches and in next year's ECT.

"The experience, that's about it," said Terranova.

With Belleville pumped up the Bucs ran out to a 4-3 lead, but the Lancers superiority at this point of the programs would win six straight points.
    "We battled in that match," said Terranova about Wednesday's contest and coming into the final. "I thought with that match (Wednesday) that we were really ready for the final."
    And Belleville could not respond in the first game on Saturday as it would go downhill from there.
    The Bucs just did not have an answer for the likes of middle hitter Kyle Rulka and Ed Jung.  "We missed several serves and every time we hit the ball they were there," said Terranova.
And it was a bad déjà vu in the second game as the same scenario repeated itself. The second game was tied at seven, but the Lancers would score the next seven points to put Belleville down 14-7. It would snowball in the wrong way for the Bucs after that as Belleville only scored four of the next 15 points.
    Thomas Rosario led the way with four kills for Belleville, but it was far from what the Bucs needed against Livingston.
    The Lancers defense put the clamps on Saturday from the likes of Belleville's Orlando Andrade and Julian Rodriguez who had eight and nine kills respectively in Wednesday's battle with Livingston, but will stymied in the ECT final.
    With the final behind them, the Belleville head coach wants to find out how his team competes on Monday at home against Golda Och Academy at 4:30 p.m.

"I need to see if we recover from this," said Terranova.