Lancers Spike Millers

The Lancers' volleyball team celebrated Senior Day by easily defeating Millburn 25-14 and 25-11. Senior captain Billy Williams celebrated his final home regular season match with a team-leading eight kills, along with four aces.

"You want to honor the seniors but you also want to play well," Lancers head coach Al Partelow said of his team's outlook on the bittersweet day. "You want to play well as a team and our mindset every time we step on the court is to try to put on a good show and do the things we know how to do and do them well."

The Lancers, who moved to 22-2 with the victory, started slowly before hitting their stride, which Partelow was not thrilled about postgame.

"The first game was a little slow getting started, but in the second game they started clicking," he said. "The key to our team is just energy level."

The Lancers may have started game one slowly, but quickly got on a roll and forced Millburn to burn a time-out as Livingston was ahead 17-11. The Lancers were called for serving out of order one play later. The penalty lost the Lancers the serve and gave a point to the Millers, making it 18-12 Livingston.

Livingston easily overcame the mistake and took game one from Millburn, 25-14.

Game two continued just as the first game left off and the Lancers jumped out to a 5-0 lead before Millburn could get on the board.

The Lancers continued their hot play with Williams serving and got the score to 15-4. The Millers took back the serve to make it 15-5 before senior Dan Smith recorded a kill to make it 16-5 for the Lancers and forced Millburn to call time-out.

Junior libero Ed Jung led the Lancers with seven digs on the game. With the score 18-6, Livingston's Jung dove across the court to keep a ball alive, which the Lancers turned into a point. Junior Jeremy Muhlfelder then recorded a kill on a roll to make the score 22-9 in the Lancers' favor. Livingston eventually finished the Millers in game two by a final of 25-11.

Senior MJ Vincent, playing significant time for the first season, was a major reason for the Lancers' success. Vincent had five kills for the Lancers from his middle blocker position. Senior JP Tirone also recorded seven kills;,good for second on the team, and senior Justin Delman led the Lancers with 23 assists.

Millburn, who falls to 3-16 with the loss, was a warm-up of sorts for the Lancers' state tournament game against Union City on Thursday afternoon at 3:30 at Livingston High School. 

Although Millburn is not a state tournament level team, Partelow thought there was valuable experience gained from the game.

"The hardest thing for any team is to play up to your own ability, don't play down to the other team," he said.

Entering the game against Union City, Partelow made his team's goal very simple.

"We don't want our season to be over," he said. "That is our main goal."