Top 20 School Stat Leaders from Day 1

Photo: Brian Bobal NJ.com

Sara LiVecchi

March 16, 2021 @ 08:33 PM

Today was the first official day of gameplay for high school volleyball in New Jersey. These teams have been through the wringer since August after they’ve started preseason, stopped, and waited all through the winter months to get back to it. Now they’re here and ready to show us what we’ve been missing. Here are the stat leaders from the matches between top 20-ranked schools across the state from day one. The once-mighty Mendham--ranked 16th in the state--fell to No. 13 Sparta tonight in two close sets. The loss of the Wilcock sisters this season will definitely be hard-felt, but there is still plenty of talent to rock that court. Outside hitter [player_tooltip player_id="128489" first="Cat" last="Holtz"] of Mendham earned 8 kills, 3 aces, and 5 digs. She is bound to have a standout senior season after having finished her junior year with an impressive 225 kills, 15 blocks, and 75 digs. No. 17 East Brunswick took down Old Bridge in two sets with some great all-around play. The two standouts are clearly seniors Hailey Benesz and Laura Sheard. Benesz ended the night with 9 kills, 3 digs, and 1 ace, while Sheard showed off with a total of 16 assists. If she keeps this up and based on last year’s stats, Sheard will surely reach 700 career assists by mid-April. The unranked Pascack Valley had a great showing over No. 18 Tenafly this afternoon to come back from a first-set loss to win in the third. Senior Jenna Joroff dominated the middle with 9 kills and two blocks while senior outside Shayne Flanagan rocked the pin with 10 kills. The two of them will surely continue to stand out with the support of all-star setter Taylor Grady. Only in her second year at PV, Grady finished her first match of the season with 35 total assists--already more than one-third of the assists she had in her entire freshman season. With a start like that, we can see that Pascack Valley will have a lot to show us this season. The monster Demarest High School (No. 2) overtook Old Tappan (No. 7) in a two-set victory. Keeping Demarest in system all match long was senior libero Connie Yu with 29 digs. She was underused last year, only earning 64 digs, but this year she will surely shine. Another powerhouse on the Demarest defense was 6’1 middle blocker, Taylor Miller. This freshman (yes, you read that correctly) racked up 6 blocks in tonight’s season opener. With all of that height and three more years to use it, it looks like Demarest is going to remain a powerhouse for seasons to come.