Girls Volleyball Reels Off Sixth Straight Victory

The Fair Lawn girls volleyball team continued its late-season surge on Wednesday in Hackensack, knocking off the Comets in straight games, 25-8, 25-16. It was the sixth victory in a row for the Cutters (13-11), who are now two games above .500 for the first time all season.

"We're finally playing the way I always knew we were capable of," said coach Peter Zisa. "The girls have responded tremendously to the early season adversity and they're now finding ways of winning the games they should win."

Wednesday's recipe to success was a balanced team effort led by Jana Nieman's seven kills, Ashley Sudol's 18 assists and Marissa Spinuzzi's 13 digs. Together, they formed an attack that was too much for the Comets to handle from the get-go.

In the first set, Fair Lawn was able to jump out to a 10-1 advantage that set the tone for the entire day, as Hackensack was left to play catch up.

The Comets (5-16) had no answer for the shot-making ability of the Cutters' primary hitters Nieman, Jackie O'Leary and Jillian Green. The trio was able to end the first set in convincing fashion by scoring 13 of Fair Lawn's final 15 points.

Fair Lawn would continue its dominant play in the second stanza with a late rally to end the match. With the score deadlocked at 10-10, the Cutters reeled off a 13-5 scoring burst to secure the victory.

Fair Lawn is peaking at the right time as they head in to the thick of postseason play. Not only did the Cutters clinch a birth in the state tournament earlier this week, but they also advanced to the second round of the county tournament with an upset victory over Glen Rock on Oct. 16.

Fair Lawn will face the county tournament's top seed, Old Tappan, on Saturday. It could be a tall order for 17th-seeded Fair Lawn to pull off another upset, as the Golden Knights come into the match as the top team in the state and already have beaten the Cutters twice this season.

"Obviously Old Tappan has given us some problems," Zisa said. "But in those first two meetings we struggled with our consistency, so we feel if we can clean that up a bit we'll have a shot at doing some positive things."

The Cutters will need to find a way to slow down the play of all-state performer Aiyana Whitney. The 6-foot-1 outside hitter, headed to Penn State University next year, has left Zisa searching for answers when the teams met before.

"There's no denying her tremendous amount of talent," Zisa said. "We just need to stay aggressive at the net and come up with the tough digs in the back row. Our defense is the key to converting opportunities for our offense so we need to stay patient and take advantage of scoring chances that present themselves."

The teams will square off Saturday on the Golden Knights' home floor at 2:30 p.m. in Old Tappan.