Dunn joins 500-win club as Old Tappan remains undefeated with win over Ridgewood

Photo Credits: Scott Faytok NJ Advanced Media

Brian Dunn has had a lot of success as the head football coach at Old Tappan High School, and it turns out he’s also pretty good at coaching girls basketball too.

Dunn, who is in his 27th season as the head girls basketball coach, celebrated his 500th career victory on Thursday night with a 47-31 victory over Ridgewood. He now joins a host of other coaches who have reached the milestone, including Chatham’s Joe Gaba, who won his 500th game on Dec. 14.

“All it means is that I’m getting older, to be honest. It feels good to know that I’ve been able to last this long (coaching), I love it,”

Dunn said. “The most important part is it’s meant a lot of relationships developed over a long period of time, so that’s the biggest part of it.

“People say your job isn’t who you are, but it’s kind of who I have been for a long time. I love the place, it’s a great place to work, everybody’s been good to me for a long time. I live right there in the community so it’s nice that I still have all of the connections and see all the people around, former players and parents and all that, so that part is always special. It didn’t take getting to a certain game to make that part special though.”

Dunn coached his very first season at Pascack Hills before moving over to Old Tappan, which is ranked No. 19 in the NJ.com Top 20, and he has been there ever since, winning two Group 3 titles with the Golden Knights in 2016 and 2018.

“Five hundred is even more impressive when you consider the strength of schedule he seeks every year within our league and through independent games,” Old Tappan assistant coach Christine Massaro said. “He could pad his stats and have many more wins if he sought up cupcake games, but he wants to challenge our team and see where we stack up and what we need to improve on. By doing that and maybe taking some tough early season losses, he ensures that the team is battle tested. He’s never about himself or his stats, he sets the tone for a team-first mentality. And what’s more, he always sets the bar at 20 wins at minimum, because that would mean you went deep in counties and state tournament. I know personally from playing for him four years and coaching with him for 19 seasons now. He sets the bar high for Old Tappan basketball.”

Coaching two sports isn’t an easy task, especially two sports that are completely different from each other and require a lot of work, before, during and after the season itself. But Dunn doesn’t shy away from the challenges of coaching two sports in back-to-back seasons, and instead embraces it.

“It’s hard, it’s getting harder every year just from being able to handle all of the things that are required year-round, but I love it, it keeps me busy,” Dunn said. “If I didn’t enjoy it I’d give up one or the other, but I still love doing both. I love coaching two completely different sports, boys and girls, not that I coach them any different, coach them both the same as athletes, but they’re two different animals and I enjoy both of them.”

The win over Ridgewood on Thursday night was the fifth-straight win of the season for the Golden Knights, which also has victories over Holy Angels, Ramapo, Paramus Catholic and Wayne Valley. Old Tappan has held its opponents to an average of 38 points per game so far and are currently atop the Big North National Division.

Senior twins Layla Giordano (16 ppg.) and Maya Giordano (11.8 ppg) lead the team, while Alivia Badurina (5.8 ppg.), Mia Derrico (6.8 ppg.) and Sienna Drullinsky (4.2 ppg.) have also contributed.

“That’s the biggest thing I’m happy about, we played five games in eight days to start the season, and I’ve never done that before in 27 years,” Dunn said. “So that was a grind and I’m really proud of our kids. We’re playing some young kids, some young guards but I have these two twins, the Giordano kids, we always have a shot against anybody with them on the floor, so I’m proud of those kids. Just having them out there and starting the season off the way we did is great, but being around them every day makes the job so fun.”

Source Link: https://www.nj.com/highschoolsports/2023/12/dunn-joins-500-win-club-as-old-tappan-remains-undefeated-with-win-over-ridgewood.html

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Old Tappan made Senior Night one to remember, rolling past Indian Hills 25-2, 25-8 to move to 11-3 on the season. The Golden Knights honored their four seniors with a complete team performance that showed depth, discipline, and energy from start to finish. Setter Joley Giordano led the attack with 14 assists, 2 kills, 2 digs, and 5 aces, running an efficient offense that kept Indian Hills off balance. Eva Curko was the top scorer with 9 kills and 2 aces, while Desi Malafis added 6 aces, 3 digs, and a kill. Julia Whaley and Nadine Whaley combined for 7 kills and 3 blocks at the net, setting the tone early with dominant front-row play. Adriana Bryan contributed strong defense and serve receive with 4 digs, 2 aces, and an assist. Gabriela Paltag chipped in 2 kills and a block, and Bianca Benasillo added 3 kills to round out a balanced front line. Maya Fernandez and Alexa Caunedo helped control the second set with key assists and energy off the bench, while Gloria Jung and Kate Finn each added an ace in limited action. Phoebe Malady and McKenna Perez provided steady defensive support throughout the match. Indian Hills (2-11) was led by Anna Baryla, Anna Tompetrini, and Mackenzie Cipriani, who each recorded 2 kills. Elizabeth Silletti paced the defense with 4 digs and 2 assists, while Gabby LiButti tallied 3 assists. Old Tappan’s 17 total aces and balanced execution defined the match, giving the seniors a perfect sendoff on their home court. The Golden Knights will look to carry that same momentum into the final stretch of the regular season.

Old Tappan advances with win over Glen Rock

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OLD TAPPAN -- The Golden Knights shook off a sub-par first set to best Glen Rock, 3-0 (25-23, 25-13, 25-14) in the Bergen County Women's Coaches Association Round of 16 volleyball tournament on Saturday.The Panthers faced the team that had won the county and state tournaments while going undefeated in 2024. But Glen Rock was great in the first set, matching the Golden Knights point for point.The score was tied on 10 occasions with neither team leading by more than 4 points at any time. Glen Rock took its first lead of the game, 9-8, with a 4-0 run to erase an 8-5 lead.Panthers senior outside hitter Teresa Sapienza began the comeback by smacking a kill to give the serve back to the Panthers and junior libero Erin Nerona followed with a service ace. When senior middle blocker Avery Schwartz followed with a successful block Glen Rock tied the score 8-all. 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But Schwartz came through for the Panthers, ending the Knights run with a kill. From there the teams traded points, and the score was tied six times."They are a really good defensive team," Curko said of the Panthers. "They were diving after every ball and what we had to adjust to was looking for open spots on the court and going out of our comfort zone to find those spots.""Their libero, (Nerona,) picked up a lot," added Bryan. "Her defense on hard swings and tips - she was doing great things out there - and it was a credit to her. During timeouts we said, 'stay away from her.' Their defense did a great job."Glen Rock took a 23-22 lead but Knights junior outside hitter Bianca Benasillo struck a well-placed kill to earn a side-out and tie the game one last time. It was Bryan's turn to serve and she did not disappoint. Neither did Curko, who blasted a kill to give Old Tappan a set point and banged home another kill for the 25-23 win."I work a lot on my service," said Bryan. 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As a setter you're confident that no matter who you set it to they have the confidence in themselves to put the ball away.""Joley was connecting with them and we're starting to build more confidence," Old Tappan coach Melissa Landeck said. "We played pretty well today and we have even more in us. We've battled injuries. We're still not 100 percent but we're a lot closer than we've been in a long time. We haven't scratched the surface yet. We're still a work in progress to be the best we can possibly be in 2025. It takes time."Old Tappan grabbed a 4-3 lead early in the third set and never trailed again. Julia Whaley belted 7 of her game high 17 kills, including the match point, in that third set."Glen Rock is a good team," said Landeck. "There's a reason why their record is what it is. They're well-coached, they're aggressive offensively. I thought they served well and they executed in all facets of the game. We knew today was going to be a challenge so I'm just proud of the girls and the way they responded and took the initial threat and were able to punch back.""We've been making a lot of adjustments [on defense,]" said Bryan. "[Coach] Landeck has been switching it up for us. So we switched the libero jersey (from junior Desi Malafis to Bryan). We have a lot of confidence in each other so it wasn't a huge adjustment for us because we always connect with each other."Six different Old Tappan players contributed points in the match. Benasillo finished with 10 kills and a block, Bryan had 9 digs, Malafis added 7 digs and Giordano had 3 kills, 5 digs and distributed an impressive 38 assists."It's really nice," said Bryan. "As a defender knowing we have 5 or 6 people who can put the ball away and we have a very deep bench - I can trust any one of them to come in and do something with the ball to get a kill. Everybody is starting to play smart. I know they're not always going to hammer the ball. They all have nice court vision. It's a blessing to have all of that."Glen Rock did a great job on defense, as Nerona scooped 14 digs and distributed 2 assists. Junior defensive specialist Rachel Park had 10 digs and 3 assists. Senior setter Ella Torsiello dished 19 assists and scooped 5 digs. Sapienza and senior Yuka Bertram each had 4 kills and combined for 13 digs. Senior Audrey Kennedy had 5 kills, 1 block and 7 digs."I think this gave the whole team, including me, a lot of confidence," said Bryan. "Glen Rock was playing great. They have good hitters. Teams are going to come after us because we are trying to defend something. This game gave us a lot of confidence and we all had a lot of fun competing today.""This is our first county game," Curko said, "and it's normal to have a few first game jitters in our first set and we kind of showed that on our serve-receive, our defense and our hitting. 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