High School Volleyball:
Lady Cougars' Serves Key To Victory

Friday, November 6, 1998

By Art Redd Jr.
SJSports Staff Writer

Next week is the start of the playoffs for girl's volleyball in South Jersey. Twenty-five teams will be competing for that top spot as state champions. Eastern, seeded 16th in the playoffs is playing the 17th seeded Old Bridge. Cherry Hill East (seeded 9th) is going up against Lincoln JC (seeded 24th). In finishing out the regular season, Eastern hosted Cherry Hill East for a battle between Olympic Conference opponents. This game would be decided on service points. East used consistent service points along with a few aces to defeat Eastern 15-8, 15-4.

The Lady Cougars were one place ahead of Eastern in the standings with the playoffs just around the corner. This would be a good test to get ready for that road to William Paterson University on November 21st. When these two teams met in October, the Lady Cougars won that match two games to one. Things changed a bit on Friday. East used a combination of consistent service points from Lara Baron, Annie Chang and Susan Allen in both games to pull away from the Vikings early. Baron had 6 service points and 3 kills in the first game. Allen and Joy Pela had also had 3 kills each. Eastern's coach was forced to call a timeout when his Vikings were down 12-6. That didn't slow down the Cougars as they won the first game.

The Lady Cougars are known for their coverage of the court on the free balls. You could see that the Lady Cougars had been instructed well in not giving their opponent easy points or side outs. In the second game, Pela stood tall at the net and contributed 4 blocks and 2 kills from the middle hitter position. Chang had 5 service points, Allen 6 service points and Baron added 4 points. Neesha Shah contributed 2 blocks and 2 kills in East's 15-4 victory.

Photos by Forrest Robleto