Rush played really well against west irondequoit. Iron couldn't get anything going. Rush was extremely consistent and made almost no errors. Iron will get better. Newton is a great coach and with a talent filled team I think they can improve greatly throughout the year.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Aged</i>

Top Five

1) Victor
2) McQuaid
3) RH
4) West Irondequoit
5) Penfield

Sound right?
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Revised:
1) McQuaid
2) Victor
3) RH
4) Penfield
5) Webster

Big game tonight. RH at McQuaid. Any predictions?

McQuaid won easily in 4, should have been 3. McQuaid looked rock solid and Rush is not what everyone projected. Austin Sanderl was overpowered by bigger better outsides and it doesn't look like they have any answers for the McQ offense. Now its only a question of will anyone else be able to contend with McQuaid

I'm pretty surprised that McQuaid lost a game. Their passing got sloppy a couple times and that kept Rush in the game. Also they had a few stretches, notably at the start of game 1 when they started off down 8-2 where they just made error after error - I definitely understand why they lost to Frontier. I think the setting and their athleticism at the net is really what will win them all the games they're going to win. If they could only clean up the serve receive...

Of course, Rush has only 4 legit players and that is not going to get the job done against McQuaid. Aeckerle set a flawless game but, again, he's outgunned.

I was impressed with the all-around play of O'Dell and Desino, specifically at the service line. Austin was ripping some quality jump serves for Rush too.

Other thoughts:
-Shaun Ermi for Rush got stronger as the match progressed - he just needs to develop a serve and get more comfortable hitting at the antennas and he will be very good.
-I was kind of unimpressed with the crew of OHs McQuaid employed tonight. I think they should at least try O'Dell there and let Christy Blough do the setting.

vballbeast and are123,
Thanks for bringing me out of my 8 year absence from posting on this site. More on both of you later...

First - congratulations to McQuaid on a spectacular performance tonight. I was particularly impressed by the quality of serving they maintained throughout tonight's match, they played real solid team defense, and displayed tremendous offensive firepower. We were beaten by a better team and no one at the match tonight would dispute that. I will need to work very hard to better prepare us for our next match against them on October 19...

I do have issue with some of the commentary on the match, however.
vballbeast- "Austin Sanderl was overpowered by bigger better outsides and it doesn't look like they have any answers for the McQ offense." While we didn't have any answers for the McQ offense tonight, I'm not sure why you would identify Austin by name. It implies that you view him as responsible for our loss tonight. Tonight's loss was a team failure in many facets of the game - our servers failed to take the McQ offense out of its comfort zone, our passing failed to meet its usual standards, and we failed to maintain our defensive discipline. Those are all areas that we will work to improve in future matches - please leave individual names out of your commentary, it is misguided in this case and mean-spirited always.

are123 - "Rush only has 4 legit players." We actually have 10 additional players on our roster - apologies if you meant to say 14 legit players and failed to enter the 1 before the 4, but I intentionally made the decision to give a uniform to all 14 of them and value what each of them contributes to our team. Hopefully, every one of the 14 on my roster will read your post and believe that they are one of the 4 "legit" players that meet your standards...

These posts highlight one of the great problems that has always plagued this site - how to generate interesting and meaningful discussion about high school volleyball without denigrating the effort of those that play high school volleyball. There are many fine young men playing scholastic volleyball. Please consider your word choice and meaning carefully when describing their efforts, or when compelled to be critical, man up and sign your name to it instead of hiding in anonymity.

Joe Bellanca
RH Varsity Coach

Well said, Joe. It baffles me why these volleyball "experts" don't apply for the numerous coaching positions that open up each year.

Good luck with the rest of your season - you are a class act.

Drew

This is a discussion board. This is a place on the internet where people come to discuss a specific topic: volleyball. I don't really understand how we're going to do that if we're to be forbidden from discussing the relative merits of players.

Life sucks: not everyone can be the best volleyball player in Rochester. Some women are uglier than others. I'm not as rich as some people, but I'm also significantly richer than some other people. The fact that I am pointing out these truths on this internet discussion board does not in any way change reality. I can't wish away the fact that some players on Rush are better than other players on Rush at the arbitrary activity we call volleyball (however I will amend my original comment: I think the blonde middle on Rush was alright but undersized, so you can expand my list to '4 or 5 legit players').

Now, if it wasn't clear already, I will say that I like the Rush team. I think they are good this year. They'll make sectional finals (as long as they avoid the 4/5 seed) and lose. That's a GOOD season in my book. They have a track record of success over the past decade. I think Joe Bellanca is a good coach for them. They have a setter who has - and I say this in an un-hyperbolic way - the best hands I can remember. It really is a shame he isn't taller. They are about as good as a team can be using only 2 passers. Overall, they do an impressive job with the tools at their disposal.

Further, I do not agree with vballbeast's characterization of the match since McQuaid was not rock solid. McQuaid's match was pretty bad for what I believe they can do. They made many errors in service reception and on the attack, and I specifically blame their outside hitters for this. I believe that this play merits at least the consideration of a change of lineup. The middles were OK but I think Ermi won the battle (only slightly though, and not that it ultimately mattered). The setting was great. The play from the right side was great. The block was great. The defense was pretty good to great. The defensive sub for Urlaub was good.

It would be difficult for anyone to make a case against these statements. If I didn't make them here, it wouldn't magically mean that McQuaid's outsides had a good match or that each of Rush's players grew 4 inches. Nowhere have I indicted anyone's character. Everyone I have mentioned is probably a great person. I'd probably want to be friends with a lot of them (although some more than others because, as I've pointed out, some people are better than others at certain things).

In fact, my original commentary was incredibly benign. I would like to point out, though, that failure to praise is tantamount to criticism. Players that I have failed to praise, I am criticizing. There is no logical way for me (or you) to both 1.) praise everyone and 2.) be honest, due to this implicit criticism.

Ultimately I disagree with the proposition that we are to come to a volleyball discussion board and not discuss volleyball players.

are 123,

I appreciate your candid assessment of our teams, and thank you for elaborating on what you earlier posted. Thank you also for your very generous words about me and about my program (though I'll confess that last evening I felt the helplessness of a coach without any on-court answers).

Having taught the majority of my players in the classroom, I feel very strongly about the character and abilities of the young men in my program, and will always attempt to defend them from I perceive to be slights. I've never felt that high school athletes should be subject to the type of public scrutiny that is routine from ESPN analysts, but I can agree to disagree with you on that.

Moreover, I'm a little sensitive to some commentary on this site because we had a very bad experience with a rival school at the end of the 2008 season that quickly escalated beyond talk about on-court volleyball play. Thankfully, that doesn't appear likely here. Thank you for being such an interested observer of Section V volleyball.

Joe Bellanca
RH Varsity Coach

Victor beats Frontier in the finals of the Victor Tournament.

Let's see the full Victor results posted!

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Aged</i>

Let's see the full Victor results posted!
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Here you go ....

https://sites.google.com/site/victorboys ... -schedules

PS: McQuaid came back and beat Victor in a spirited match at Eden but lost to Frontier in finals. Victor takes Frontier in 2 last weekend. Tough to call the top three with 3-way split. My guess is that McQuaid had a big time emotional let down after playing Victor and should have beaten Frontier in the final.

The big fly in the ointment is Penfield. Rumor has it that they are just as strong as ever. Penfield will host Victor on Wed and then they travel to R-H a week from Tues (9/28). Things will obviously shake out further at the Penfield tournament on Oct 11th. Fun, fun.

Hope to make it to the Victor @ Penfield match - that will be huge.

I have uploaded some matches:

McQuaid 2 1 Victor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0e85qX93Eg

McQuaid 0 2 Frontier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Ua00QRKE4

McQuaid 3 1 Rush-Henrietta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9WvKA2l2rM