Boys' volleyball team will seek Group 4 state championship against Old Bridge on June 6
Last season, the Bridgewater-Raritan High School boys’ volleyball
team won its first sectional championship since 2017 after winning in the finals away from
home.
The Panthers in 2024 not only defended this title, but this time, they hoisted
the trophy on their home court.
Second-seeded Livingston High School (22-7) scored the match’s three points before top-seeded
Bridgewater-Raritan (25-4) exploded for nine straight points, never trailed again, and cruised to a
2-0 (25-14, 25-15) triumph in the North New Jersey, Group 4 Tournament final on Monday, June 3, at Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium in Bridgewater.
“It’s just an even better feeling than last year,” said Bridgewater-Raritan junior Harry Fromberg
(11 kills, one block, one ace, six digs) about his squad clinching its second-straight sectional
crown but winning this title at home. “It’s kind of indescribable. This team put in so much work
to be here in this gym in front of all of our fans and family. It means a lot to us.”
Bridgewater-Raritan, which improved to 25-4 and advanced to the Group 4 Tournament
state championship match for the second straight year to also go with back-to-back Skyland Cup
Tournament titles.
Bridgewater-Raritan was defeated in straight sets in the 2023 Group 4 title match against
Southern Regional High School, but a new Group 4 state champion will be crowned on the final
day of New Jersey’s boys’ volleyball season on Thursday evening, June 6.
The stage is now set for Bridgewater-Raritan and Old Bridge, which is ranked No. 12 in the
the entire country, to square off in the 2024 Group 4Tournament championship match at South Brunswick High School.
Bridgewater-Raritan and Old Bridge previously played
in Old Bridge’s invitational tournament back on April 20, so given the Panthers have already
seen Old Bridge and Southern during the regular season, they were guaranteed to play against a
familiar foe after winning its North Group 4 title.
The first serve between the Panthers and Knights will be at6 p.m. in South
Brunswick.
Southern (27-3), which is ranked No. 3 in New Jersey, defeated the Panthers by a score of 2-0
(25-20, 25-21) on its home court in the Rams’ inaugural boys’ volleyball showcase in
Manahawkin back on May 11. However, the Rams were edged in a three-game thriller at
undefeated and top-ranked Old Bridge High School, 2-1 (25-17, 16-25, 26-24), in the finalof
South New Jersey, Group 4 on Monday evening in Old Bridge.
Bridgewater-Raritan, which is currently ranked No. 5 in New Jersey, was seeded fifth in last
season’s state sectional playoff tournament bracket before earning the No. 1 seed this year.
Notably, after the 2023 Panthers’ squad defeated No. 12-seeded Newark East Side High School
in the opening round of the sectional playoffs, the Panthers had to tour the northern part of the
Garden State as the lower-seeded team during the rest of what ended up being a magical North
Group 4 title run consisting of three upset victories away from home.
The Panthers ultimately wenton to win at fourth-seeded North Bergen High School in the quarterfinals, at top-seeded
Livingston High School in Essex County in the semifinals, and then at third-seeded Bloomfield
High School in last season’s sectional championship match.
So earning home-court advantage for all four rounds of the sectional playoffs as the top seed in
2024 not only was satisfying for Bridgewater-Raritan but so was celebrating with the trophy
postgame after a dominating performance over the visiting Lancers.
Especially since both Bridgewater-Raritan and Livingston have already squared up once at
Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium back on May 1, when the Panthers rolled to a 2-0 (25-10, 25-20)
victory over the Lancers: New Jersey’s No. 16-ranked team, en route to eventually earning the
top seed in their sectional bracket over Livingston by a comfortable margin.
“I think it’s a big mentality game,” Fromberg went on to say about what led to the Panthers’
dominating performance on Monday evening. “We put in our ‘A’ game in our minds. We made
three mistakes, they get three points – whatever. We come back on a 9-0 run.”
That essentially summarized the match’s first 12 points, which saw Livingston jump out to a
quick 3-0 lead that was erased in the blink of an eye.
Bridgewater-Raritan then scored its first point before Fromberg scored and then senior Matt
Dolly (one ace, five assists, eight digs) found him yet again to tie the first set as part of a career-
high five assists for the Panthers’ defensive specialist. Bridgewater-Raritan senior setter Sean
Marvuglio (two blocks, three aces, 24 assists, five digs), who had one of his two blocks during
the Panthers’ match-swinging nine-point run, then assisted Fromberg on his third kill of the
match to give Bridgewater-Raritan a 4-3 lead and put it ahead for good.
This burst of six more points was capped off with a block by Fromberg to balloon his team’s lead
to 9-3, but Livingston’s offense responded with four of the game’s next five points to cut its
deficit to 10-7.
Bridgewater-Raritan then pulled away with 15 of the next 22 points to roll to a 25-14 victory in
game one on an evening where the Panthers’ precise positioning, blocking, and even some
unintentional assists from Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium’s ceiling rafters on Livingston’s side of
the court led to a big day for the home team.
Just some of the many reasons why home-court advantage is so critical, especially for a
Bridgewater-Raritan team that had gotten used to Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium’s environment
via 15 home matches in 2024 alone prior to Monday evening.
“I thought we played brilliantly today,” reflected Bridgewater-Raritan head coach Corey
Romanak after the match. “One of the things we were talking about leading up to this game is
that if you want to win a championship, you have to play with that championship mentality. And
we did that today.”
Four different players scored at least three points in game two for Bridgewater-Raritan, which
only surrendered 15 points in this championship-clinching set: three of them on service errors.
After Livingston managed to cut the Panthers’ early game-two lead to 4-3, Bridgewater-Raritan
senior Sid Ganapathy (six kills, two blocks, four digs) scored before the Lancers collected back-
to-back points to knot the set at 5-5.
Another 9-0 run by Bridgewater-Raritan then put game two out of reach.
“I give credit to Livingston - we were able to block them and kind of knock them out of their
system,” Romanak went on to say. “They’re a great team, but we said that if we could block well
and get them to hit those off-speed shots, we would be able to adjust our defense hoping that we
would know what they were going to do offensively. They did, so it worked to our benefit that
we prepared for a match like this, and they really performed.”
The Panthers then got ahead by double digits, 17-7, on an ace by senior Andre Cruz to begin
their home stretch toward the sectional trophy. Senior Jonny Jentis collected a kill on the way to
the 25-point magic number in a burst that saw points 21, 22, and 23 come on three straight aces
by Marvuglio, and Bridgewater-Raritan closed out its 25-15 game-two victory from there.
Livingston, which won its third straight Essex County Tournamentt title this
season, concluded 2024 as North Group 4 runner-up with a 22-7 record.
“I don’t feel comfortable until the match is over, but at the end of the match when we had a
certain lead, I was able to get all of our seniors in that don’t normally play,” Romanak said of the
match’s final points. “Our starting six played brilliantly. At the end of the match, and this is a
credit to the entire team, I knew [our remaining seniors] would be able to contribute after putting
them in. Jonny Jentis got a kill, and Andre got an ace today. Our second-tier team and our guys
that came in performed as champions as well. That was my favorite part of today: watching our
seniors perform and be able to contribute.”
Junior Cam Williams (five kills, four blocks, six digs), junior Vihaan Pradhan (four kills, one
assist, one dig), and senior Trevor Sullivan (one kill) had the remaining points for Bridgewater-
Raritan.
