Red Raiders have been a varsity program for only three years
NEWFIELD — “Sometimes I watch game film over and over and take a million notes,” Ocean City High School volleyball coach Jillian Garza said. “Today was not the day for that.”
It wasn’t the time for a specific strategy heading into Tuesday night’s Cape-Atlantic League Volleyball Tournament Championship against No. 1 seed Our Lady of Mercy Academy (OLMA).
The strategy, or lack thereof, worked.
The No. 3 seed Red Raider girls defeated OLMA 3-1 to claim the CAL trophy.
It was the first time in either team’s history that they made the finals. Granted, Ocean City’s history goes back but three years. Volleyball became a varsity sport at OCHS in 2023.
“We were in a no-lose situation because we’ve never taken it this far. I told the girls to leave it all out on the court, to do their best and no matter what happens, we’re proud of them,” Garza said. “We’re happy no matter what because we made it as far as we did.”
That approach gave the girls unbridled confidence, even as they narrowly won the first set 27-25 and OLMA took the second set 25-17 to tie things up. The Red Raiders won the next two sets 25-17, 25-15 to take the best-of-five match.
“We were never worried,” junior Brynn Williams said. “We knew that we were going to come in here and just take it all. We knew that we had it in the bag from the start.
“We just started a couple years ago and I just think we came out here and played our hardest game that we’ve played yet. And I think we did an amazing job at it,” said Williams, who has 111 kills, 138 digs, 159 service points and 57 aces on the season. “It just feels amazing. Our team has come so far.”
“It feels so surreal,” added junior libero Gabrielle Erace, who had 10 digs in the game. “Honestly, our energy was amazing and we just came out here today knowing that we wanted it more than ever. We wanted this CAL championship.”
Erace has been on the squad all three of its varsity years as the team went from single-digit wins (6-14) to just hitting double figures (10-14) last year and now to a 24-1 record.
Erace, who leads the team in digs with 180 to go with her 89 service points, credited the extra spark of transfer student Bradee Boyd.
“When I found out that Bradee was coming to New Jersey, I immediately DM’d her on Instagram, and I told her, ‘Hey, O.C. needs you. And it was just went on from there.”
Boyd has proved to be a force. As a transfer who played her freshman year at Mainland Regional High School and sophomore year at Calvary Christian in Florida, Boyd had to sit out the first 10 games of the season.
Ocean City was already proving its potential with her on the bench, starting the season with a 9-1 record. When Boyd got in on the action, it jumped to another level.
Boyd had 24 kills in the game to go with 15 aces and 10 digs, leading her team in the CAL finals. She leads in kills (238) and aces (93) for the season, despite missing 10 of the 25 games. She also has 79 digs.
“It’s really incredible. I’m just so, so proud of our team. Just coming here and making it for the first time in the CAL tournament and for the first time winning,” Boyd said. “It has just been our goal and we worked so hard. I’m just so proud of each and every one of the girls on the team for working hard in practice and working hard in the games.
“Literally, just all the heart showed. There is so much character in this team and I’m just really proud to be a part of this amazing group,” she added.
“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Boyd said. When the girls lost the second set, she and her teammates knew the Villagers were going to put up a fight so they couldn’t back down.
“We had to rise up and rise to the occasion and fight back harder and really have to want it,” she said. “I think that’s what we showed — perseverance.”
The Red Raiders actually got a two-for package with the Boyd family. Bradee’s younger sister, Rylee, is a freshman on the team. She had 13 assists, six aces and four kills in the championship effort. For the season, she has 276 assists, 161 service points and 89 aces along with 75 kills.
“This is insane,” Rylee Boyd said. “Especially getting to experience this with my whole team of best friends that I just met and my sister. It’s amazing.”
She cited the team’s energy as a key factor in the win.
“We brought it all out on the court today,” she said.
The chemistry between the sisters is evident on the court, whether in setups for kills or pumping each other up between plays.
Playing with her older sister, Rylee said, “is my favorite part. I love it. It’s so cool because I’ve watched her all these years play on varsity. I’ve just been watching how cool it is the way she can connect with her (teammates) and now that’s me.”
Sophomore Brooke Sutor said the championship feels “amazing” after last year, when she was a freshman on the team and watching her teammates play.
“I just switched to right side so it’s definitely a new position and just great to be with a team that supports everyone,” Sutor said. She contributed five kills in the game. She has 83 kills on the season, 130 service points and 51 aces.
“We support each other all the time with our teamwork. We lift each other up when we’re down and celebrate when people do great,” Sutor said.
“We were definitely confident. And we’re just excited for the state tournament next,” she said.
Grace Preston had a kill, a block and three service points in the game; Charli Elberson had three kills, a block and a dig; Cassidy Derrickson had four assists; and Stella Tomaselli had a service point. For the season, Preston has 19 kills, 14 blocks, 35 service points and 17 aces; Elberson has 19 kills and five blocks; Derrickson has 147 assists, 86 service points, 24 aces, 53 digs and five kills; and Tomaselli has 26 digs, 16 service points and three kills.
First-year OLMA coach Olivia Stefano said her team’s youth and inexperience factored into the Villagers’ loss.
“We’re a young team; we’ve never been this far before. We’ve barely even been in the American Division. We’ve never won it. We’ve never been the one-seed,” Stefano said. “We’ve never even made it past the quarterfinal round of the CAL. It’s all just new for us.”
She said it was exciting for her team, but also a lot of pressure dealing with the emotions of processing the success — her team is 17-5 — and the fear of failure.
“It’s a lot for these girls, but everybody’s coming back next year and we’re ready to do it again,” she said. “I think we really put up a fight. There were cracks, obviously, in what we did, but I’m very proud of how we played this game.”
“At the end of the day, I think we just kind of lost momentum.” The coach added they’ll be working on getting more mentally tough in the future.
Ocean City’s coach said she and her fellow coaches worked to instill confidence in their players.
“We talk about it all the time, we celebrate everything that they do,” Garza said. “And I tell them they need to be confident and they can’t hesitate and they’ve got to go hard all the time.
“They have to believe in themselves and we tell them every day how much we believe in them,” she said. “I think that’s what really has taken us as far as it did.”
Garza hopes the success this season will attract more interest in the volleyball program at OCHS and brings out a lot of potential players.
“I just think this is a wonderful thing to celebrate. I’m just really, really proud of my girls.”
Ocean City earned the No. 2 seed in the South Jersey Group III sectional and was to take on No. 15 seed Winslow Township in the first round Tuesday. Moorestown (19-3) has the No. 1 seed.
OLMA is the No. 8 seed in the South Jersey Non-Public A Tournament.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
