Mainland rebuilding team, Ocean City building program
OCEAN CITY — The Mainland Regional High School girls volleyball team is the defending South Jersey Group III champion, but finds itself with the same 4-7 record as Ocean City, a nascent program, at this point in the season.
That is because the Mustangs lost much of their talent from the past two seasons to graduation and because Ocean City is still building its varsity program.
The two teams met Sept. 23 and Mainland came away the 2-0 victory, but the Red Raiders were able to hang with the Mustangs and exchange leads before falling 25-20, 25-18.
The Mustangs compiled a 19-8 record in their 2023 championship run and beat Pinelands Regional 2-1 for the South Jersey title. The year before, the girls were 18-5 but lost to Pinelands 2-1 in the sectional final.
Much of that team is gone and head coach Erica Reis said the Mustangs are definitely in a growing year.
“I have older girls, a lot of them are juniors and seniors, but they haven’t played together on the varsity court. We’ve kind of been going through some growing pains, which our record definitely shows.
“Today was probably the first time that I saw them playing as one unit,” Reis said after the match against Ocean City.
“They were out there and communicating way more and playing together, which was definitely an improvement compared to what they had been doing, so it was good to see that,” she said.
“There is definitely a lot of potential and we’re going to have to keep working on the communication and toward the goal of winning and competing, compared to what we’ve been doing the past two weeks, which is just falling short and not competing with everybody.”
Coach Reis is looking to seniors Sage Geubtner and Kylie Hennelly for leadership.
“They are also the two girls who were out on my court last year, so they know what it takes to be competitive and to win and compete at that high level. I’ve been looking for them to pick up and push the girls to that limit,” she said.
Reis is also expecting good things from Zayda Shevlin, the team’s outside hitter.
“She is tremendous. She’s very strong, so I’ve been looking to her to get a lot of hits and a lot of kills this year and she has been.”
One of the team’s middles, Ana Kilibarda, “has been stepping up and doing a tremendous job. She improved tremendously throughout the summer.”
Last year the team was in pursuit of a title. This year the goal is to “compete every game and not to give up on ourselves. Every game, even if we go down a couple points, I want them to stay up and stay with it, not be too hard on themselves, and to compete throughout. Even if we do fall short, it’s just being ready and giving the other team a challenge no matter what’s happening.”
Reis would like to have the team finish at least .500.
Against Ocean City, Geubtner led the team with nine kills, 10 service points and seven digs. Hennelly had 11 digs and Cady DeMarco had 15 assists and five digs. Shevlin had five kills, seven service points and six digs.
So far this season, Geubtner has racked up 75 kills and 69 digs, Shevlin 39 kills and 55 digs and DeMarco 125 assists and 28 digs. Hennelly leads the team with 82 digs and has 13 assists.
Ocean City’s Gabrielle Erace had nine digs and Grace Tutor had eight service points. Ella Miller contributed five digs, five service points, three assists and one kill.
After the Sept. 23 match, Mainland beat Pleasantville 2-1 but fell to Hammonton by the same score. Ocean City followed it up by beating Middle Township 2-0 but then lost to Absegami 2-0.
Red Raiders
growing up
Ocean City had the pleasure of meeting Pinelands in the opening round of last year’s sectional tournament, falling 2-0 to the South Jersey finalist in the first round.
They finished last season with a 6-15 record but did manage to score 20 points against Pinelands in their second playoff game.
Head coach Jillian Garza is pleased with the fact she has a lot of players back from last year.
“We actually have a lot of girls returning this year. We have a ton of sophomores on our team,” she said. “Our JV team worked really, really hard to build their skills over the winter. They’ve been working together great and our varsity team has a lot of returning girls.”
She also has a new player in transfer Brynn Williams, who moved to the district from Illinois.
Overall, she said, “I think they’re doing great. They’re hustling. They’re working hard. I have to say this is the most coachable group that I’ve hard.”
Her senior leaders are Danna Ramirez, Olivia Stone and Sarah Hoffman. Sophomore libero Gabrielle Erace “is our hype girl. She’s always hyping the girls up and she’s always positive. She knows that we expect a lot from her,” Garza said.
She cites Erace and Williams as the standouts for the team, but acknowledges “everyone is working hard and playing hard.”
Williams, a sophomore, leads the team with 31 kills, 60 digs and 49 service points. Erace 75 digs, the most on the team. Freshman Brooke Sutor has 25 kills, 43 service points and 16 digs. Sophomore Ella Miller has 58 assists, most on the team, 41 service points and 18 digs as well as six kills. Junior Nicole Lihou 16 kills, 41 service points and 10 digs.
Garza said she wants her Red Raiders to take other teams to three sets.
“Their goal is to win one of those sets. So far we’ve won a couple,” she said.
In the team’s four wins, the girls won two sets to none against Cape May Tech, St. Joseph of Hammonton and twice against Middle Township.
Although her girls got close against Mainland, Garza saw the need for improvement.
“Our girls stopped talking on the court. I kind of let them have it a little bit about communication and how important it is to talk to one another on the court and how it is the only way they’re going play well is to communicate and if they choose to trust each other on the court.”
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
