Delbarton, Mount Olive add to explosion of NJAC boys volleyball
· Yahoo Sports
When Delbarton defeated Dover in the first round of the Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference volleyball tournament on May 15, it was the fulfillment of a dream for junior setter Matthew Issac.
Issac and senior Will Antenen had pitched the idea of launching volleyball at the all-boys Morris County parochial school last spring. They presented a full Powerpoint with an equipment budget, uniform design and potential schedule for games and even the weight room to athletic director Tony Negrin and other school administrators.
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A few months later, Green Wave volleyball was born. Holes were drilled in the gym floor to anchor a net – instead of the rolling apparatus the extracurricular club had been using – and Delbarton registrar Jonathan Cote had signed on as head coach.
Issac and Antenen went to work recruiting classmates to play for the new team, which went straight to varsity this season. But Delbarton couldn't get into the NJAC on such short notice, only the tournament.
Top-seeded Randolph will play Randolph for the NJAC Tournament title at 6 p.m. on May 21 at FDU-Florham. It is the event's fifth year, with the Rams claiming the first two titles. Chatham has never played in the NJAC final.
"I had high expectations, and we fulfilled a bunch of them," said Issac, proudly declaring that Delbarton won its first-ever NJAC game – before losing at Randolph in its tournament quarterfinal.
"At the start of the season, we were a little messy. I didn't know we would win a game in the first season, especially since none of us had played. But our team learned really fast."
Leader of the pack
Vernon was the first local boys volleyball team, going varsity in the spring of 1999 with alumnus Jeff DeYoung at the helm. Jefferson assistant coach Marc Gaydos, who played on that inaugural Vikings team, said it was "a hodgepodge of kids from all different backgrounds."
"You had the skateboarders, the soccer players, the track athletes who wanted something different. It was a weird mix," Gaydos said. "A lot of these kids play gym volleyball and think that's real volleyball, but it isn't. It's proper education, proper recruitment. As you have a program that's succeeding, you get more recruitment, because the kids go to those games and realize, 'This is something I want to do.'"
Vernon joined the North Jersey Boys Volleyball League in 1999, which included teams from Bergen County, Essex County and Passaic County. Gaydos recalled long bus rides to unusual opponents, "getting home when the sun is down."
That league lasted until 2006, when the Passaic teams spun off their own conference. The Northern New Jersey Interscholastic Boys Volleyball League disbanded in 2009, when the remaining teams were absorbed into the Super Essex Conference and Big North.
Vernon was on its own again, playing an independent schedule that involved quite a bit of travel. As Jefferson and Pope John launched boys volleyball in the late 2000s, DeYoung helped to create the West Jersey Volleyball League around 2012, serving as commissioner and making the schedule.
The NJAC, which began sponsoring volleyball in 2018, became the ninth conference or county with a boys volleyball tournament the following year, joining the Greater Middlesex Conference and Passaic and Hudson counties.
"In 2001, the coaches in the Big North would come up and think it was a joke. But Jefferson and Vernon had a reputation: It's not a joke," Gaydos said. "I never thought it would be at this level. We would always go to Fair Lawn and Lakeland and wonder, 'Why aren't we seeing this on a daily basis? Now, we are."
Slow, steady growth of boys volleyball
Nationwide, girls volleyball ranks third in total schools which offer it – behind basketball and track and field – and No. 2 in participants, according to the 2024-25 National Federation of State High School Associations survey.
More than 17,000 high schools have girls volleyball, compared with about 4,300 boys teams – more than three times fewer. That gulf is closing rapidly in New Jersey, where there are 335 girls volleyball programs and 292 for boys.
That would place the state's boys sixth, behind California (1138), Illinois (380), New York (265), Florida (262) and Pennsylvania (241).
Negrin said building Delbarton's volleyball program "was stressful initially, but it came together nicely."
Gyms are relatively available in the spring for practice and games. Schools which already have girls volleyball can use the same nets – set up in holes drilled into the floor – and balls, as well as pre-painted court lines. Also, volleyball has only six players on the court at a time, which lessens even the one-time expense of jerseys – and enables schools to use smaller buses. Schools will also have to fund coaches – a stipend which varies by district – and officials, but they, too, are mostly the same across the girls and boys seasons.
Though the sport is growing for both genders in New Jersey, there has been a 12.8% increase in boys volleyball since the pandemic. In addition to Delbarton, Mount Olive made its varsity debut this spring after two JV seasons.
Girls volleyball coaches Tom Reszka and Lee Clowers are leading the Marauders' boys program. They've talked about this launch for 10 or 15 years, but held back.
"There was nobody to play," said Clowers, who led the Mount Olive girls team for 19 years. "I don't know why all of a sudden it exploded."
The NJSIAA has sanctioned a girls volleyball tournament since 1981, and boys since 1988 – opening it up to separate Groups in 2023. Southern Regional has won eight boys titles, and Bridgewater-Raritan seven.
Though Bergen County is a traditional girls volleyball hotbed, Fair Lawn is the county's only boys champ (1995, 2011-12). Harrison is the only WJVL team to reach the NJSIAA final, falling to Southern, 25-21, 25-21 in 2016.
The brackets for this spring's NJSIAA Tournament were released on May 20. Randolph earned the top seed in Group 2 North, one of four NJAC teams to qualify.
Delbarton is not among them, but will build for next spring off that single NJAC Tournament victory – the first in program history.
"It was a long road. It was that barrier we couldn't cross," said Antenen, who lives in Chatham. "Delbarton has a standard of excellence, but it's a whole different mindset (in volleyball). If we lose a game in soccer, it's a huge deal. But if we win a game in volleyball, it's a huge deal. ... It's been a bit of a process, but throwing us into the fire has helped us to learn quickly."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Delbarton, Mount Olive join NJAC boys volleyball growth