Colonia coach Tom Hennessy was left speechless on Tuesday night after watching his team sweep Monroe in the Middlesex Conference Tournament quarterfinal round.

It wasn’t the dizzying display of setter Danielle Sica’s match-high 11 assists, nor was it how 6-0 middle Indy Jorji hammered another match-high of 10 kills and three blocks for top-seeded Colonia when it ousted eighth-seeded Monroe, 25-10, 25-20.

Hennessy found himself speechless when the final buzzer sounded and the Colonia girls volleyball team rushed the bench and doused Hennessy with cans of silly string, confetti and balloons to congratulate the third-year coach on his 100th career win.

“It’s not my really mine, it has to do with these girls,” he said of reaching the milestone. “They’ve been great. And I was speechless today. They came out and streamed me and gave me a couple of awards and a shirt. It was really nice, probably the best thing that has happened to me as a coach.”

In 2007 Hennessy helped to form a girls volleyball team at Colonia, when he immediately went to work constructing a winning program with a group of girls who - for the most part - had never played volleyball. In 2009, thanks to Hennessy’s guiding hand and the team’s hard work, Colonia became a varsity program. In its first year of NJSIAA regulated competition Colonia constructed a 23-8 record. While, a year later, it earned an entrance into the Greater Middlesex Conference and improved upon its debut performance to finish its 2010 campaign at 27-2 and with the GMCT title.

“We set our goals early and this year it was to get back to county finals and win it,” he said. “With seven seniors graduated last year and only two returning I wasn’t sure how we were going to go about it.”

"Coaching, it’s like a puzzle. You learn to put the pieces somewhere. This year’s group, they are smart and they work hard. They’ve learned to battle back and show resilience.”

In Colonia’s second year of conference competition it’s well on its way to achieving that goal with a repeat performance in the GMCT. At 20-1 overall and in the conference, Colonia’s sole loss was to South Brunswick on Oct. 12 in a tight three-setter. However the team remained confident and resilient, picking itself up and learning from the loss to post a 2-0 victory the following day over its toughest competitor, conference rival and second seeded in this year’s GMCT, Mother Seton.