Millers Can't Keep Up With Bucs

BELLEVILLE - The Millburn boys' volleyball team just could not keep up with second-seeded Belleville in the Essex County Tournament Wednesday. The seventh-seeded Millers battled hard against second-seeded Bucs, but just could not get over the top.

Millburn fell 25-21 and 25-16 to Belleville in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. The Millers received strong offense from the likes of Jason Schwartz, Josh McCafferty and Andy Jacobs.

Millburn dropped to 6-4 on the season and will be looking to build their resume for the state playoffs later this month.

Millers Head Coach Mikhail Sigalov was pleased with his team's play. "At least we fought and did not give up," he said.

He added that the team played well, but started to fall apart at the end of the second game. "They all played better," Sigalov said. "You could see at the end of the game that we were struggling."

Coming into the contest injuries had plagued Millburn as senior setter Jonathan Wang missed some time with an ankle injury and was still hampered by it.
"The biggest problem is that our primary setter (Wang) is still recovering from an injury," said Sigalov. "The setter is like a quarterback so we need to adjust our entire lineup."

And in addition some of the middle hitters had been battling injuries so Sigalov had to move players around. To make matters worse, junior middle hitter Eddie Lin injured his left leg at the start of the second game and was lost for most of that game.

Coming into the match, Millburn was confident after taking Belleville to three games on April 6, but falling 15-25, 25-22 and 18-25.
 And the Millers almost did just that in the first game. Millburn battled tooth-and-nail with the second best seeded team in the county.

While the Bucs stayed ahead, Millburn would not let them just walk away with the first game. Down 14-9 and 15-10 at one point, the Millers chipped away with the help of senior Jacobs dig and then Jacobs scoring a service ace to slice the Bucs lead to two, 16-14.

But every time Millburn came close, Belleville came back to extend their lead, this time it was 22-15 in favor of the Bucs.  But the Millers did come without two points, 22-20, late in the first game with the help of scoring from Schwartz and McCafferty.

 In the second game Millburn stayed close early on with the help of the likes of Schwartz and Steve McGee and were only down three, 9-6, after a smash by Jacobs. And a point by Millers junior Killian O’Gorman would cut a Belleville lead to four, midway through the second game, 13-9.

But after that Belleville’s power would not be denied as the Bucs scored nine out of the next 12 points to take a 22-12 lead.  In the end the Millers could not stay with the offense from Bucs Andrade and Julian Rodriguez and Carl Laroco.

Millburn came into the quarterfinal match after defeating Golda Och, 25-14 and 25-8 on April 28.  The Millers will look to rebound against Montclair on Thursday along with traveling to East Orange on Monday.

Millburn volleyball schedule
(Matches at 4 p.m. unless noted)

May 5          Montclair
May 9          at East Orange
May 11        at East Side, 4:30 p.m.
May 12        at Livingston, 4:30 p.m.
May 17        Belleville
May 18        Livingston
May 19        Golda Och