Sports
Garfield at Randolph Group 2 North final
RANDOLPH — There is only one senior banner left hanging on the far wall of Randolph’s gym: setter Kevin Tinio. All the others have been taken down. Tinio will get to keep his place of honor for a few more days. The Rams outlasted Garfield, 25-23, 21-25, 29-27 to win Group 2 North on June […]
RANDOLPH — There is only one senior banner left hanging on the far wall of Randolph’s gym: setter Kevin Tinio. All the others have been taken down.
Tinio will get to keep his place of honor for a few more days. The Rams outlasted Garfield, 25-23, 21-25, 29-27 to win Group 2 North on June 6.
It is the first sectional trophy for the 5-year-old boys volleyball team. Randolph advances to face the Group 2 South champion for the overall title on Wednesday at South Brunswick.
Tinio had an inkling this would be a solid season as soon as practice started. It was the bonds between the other starters who have played together for Xtreme Volleyball Academy in Ledgewood.
Tinio only started playing volleyball as a Randolph freshman, but he stepped into the leadership role as the team’s lone senior. It was particularly important after the Rams (25-4) were upset on their home floor in a Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference tournament semifinal.
“That loss from NJACs started the fire in us,” said Tinio, who plans to continue his academic and volleyball careers at Widener. “We’ve got to lock in. We saw we could really take it this far if we took it seriously.”
Fourth-seeded Garfield (21-10) came in as the defending sectional champion, with more than two decades of history. The Boilermakers had gone undefeated in the NJIC-American without even dropping a game, and won their first Bergen County Tournament title.
All that experience helped fuel Garfield – which upset top seed Ramapo in a June 4 semifinal – during long rallies, and as match point seesawed back and forth.
Boilermakers coach Heidi Dawson called timeout with Randolph ahead, 24-23. Senior outside Ylan Tapper put the ball down, tying the score. But sophomore Jan Rostek gave the Rams the lead back on a crosscourt kill.
Tapper had Garfield’s kills in the final stretch of the third game. But finally, Cole Cantada put the ball down and the Boilermakers were unable to respond.
“It stinks to lose that way,” said Dawson, a Garfield alumnus who founded the boys program in 1998 and coached there until 2005. “I’m very proud of this group. … It’s been a struggle to get some respect, because Ylan is such an amazing player. But it’s not a one-man show. There’s a lot of hard work going on, and a real team effort.”
Tapper had a game-high 30 kills, a block, three aces and 11 digs. Junior middle Ben Barninger led Randolph with 10 kills, three blocks, three digs and an ace. Tinio added 26 assists, a kill, four blocks and two digs.
“We accomplished beautiful things,” said Rostek, who had nine kills, three blocks and two digs. “How we fight, that’s really beautiful. I don’t think you can put that in a stat book.”