New Year, Different Result: Ramapo Edges Fair Lawn

It had all the makings of a dramatic event: opening match of the 2010 volleyball season, a matchup between teams that met in the state quarterfinals a year ago, MSG on site to broadcast the match.

Ramapo took all the suspense away, though, efficiently dispatching Fair Lawn in under an hour, 25-19, 25-18, at home Monday afternoon.

"It was perfect," said senior outside hitter Sarah Giegerich of how her team started the season. "They're a great team to start with; we're trying to get a healthy rivalry going. They were great competition."

The Raiders were fast out of the starting blocks, building a 7-1 lead. Fair Lawn battled back to get close at 21-18 before Ramapo pulled away, closing out the opening game with a jump-serve ace by Giegerich.

"It's always nice to win the first one," said fourth-year Ramapo coach Dave Van Hook. "The first match brings lots of nerves, lots of excitement with MSG here and playing Fair Lawn. We're a pretty steady team as far as emotion goes, so to hear (our players) get a little excited before the match was nice."

Those nerves showed as both squads struggled to sustain consistent rallies, but the scrambling ability of Ramapo helped buoy them through the game.

"I think we did OK passing, and we improved our passing as the game went along," said Giegerich, who had five kills and eight digs on the day. "Our hitting was OK and (setter) Erin (O'Hagan) did a good job getting the ball to us."

The Raiders started off the second game with an ace and three service points by Courtney Dolan. After Fair Lawn tied the game at 5-5, Ramapo went on a 10-5 run to build what proved to be an insurmountable lead. The tie at 5-5 was the only point in the match at which Ramapo did not lead.

"We wanted to get through the second game and not think about the third game, " said Van Hook, not wanting to re-live that state quarterfinal match a year ago, when Ramapo also won the first game before Fair Lawn bounced back to win two straight.

Senior middle blocker Nicole Kincade led the Raiders with 14 kills, with most of the damage coming in the second game. O'Hagan, in her first season as setter after playing libero in previous seasons for the Raiders, recorded 20 assists, while Anna Poruks had a team-high 10 digs.

Ramapo will have an opportunity to build on Monday's success, while also working to improve areas of weakness, Tuesday when they travel to Ridgewood.

"We obviously need to work on our serving," Van Hooks said. "We had too many missed serves, but you're going to have that when you're an aggressive serving team."