Upper Merion advanced to Saturday’s District One AAA title game, thanks to the Vikings 3-1 win over Garnet Valley.
#2 UPPER MERION 3, #3 GARNET VALLEY 1 (25-16, 21-25, 25-20, 25-17)
They wear teams down, they force teams into making mistakes, and they rarely beat themselves. In the end, more often than not, they finish on top.
It’s been a recipe for success for decades under coach Tony Funsten, and when the veteran coach crossed paths with Garnet Valley coach Mark Clark after Thursday’s semifinal, the Jaguars’ coach paid the Vikings the ultimate compliment.
“You’re solid,” Clark said. “You’re just so solid.”
In a match that featured one long rally after another, the Vikings would not be denied.
“It’s tiring,” senior captain Emily Shannon said. “I think what gets us through it – we work really hard to get that point, we go two minutes for one volley, so it feels amazing when you get the point.”
“We practice like that too,” senior captain Eryn Brady said. “Mr. Funsten will toss us free balls, and we’ll just play. We’re evenly match, and we’ll go out there and play long rallies at practice, so we’re used to it.”
The Vikings’ relentless play was not lost on their coach. When asked what he was most pleased with in the hard fought win, Funsten had an immediate answer.
“Their grit,” he said. “We had three kids who couldn’t practice yesterday because of injury and sickness, and they gutted it out today.”
The Vikings rolled to a 25-16 win in the opening set but came out on the short end of a 25-21 score in the second, setting the stage for a grueling third set that featured 12 ties. The Vikings trailed 17-14, but an Emily Shannon kill brought Niki Carpenter to the service line. She served for an ace to make it a one-point game, and a Brady kill knotted the score 17-17.
The final tie came at 18-18, and the Vikings took a lead they would not lose on a Jaguar hit in the net. A kill by Brady put the Vikings on top 20-18, prompting the Jaguars to call a timeout. The Jaguars pulled to within one, but the Vikings led 22-19 after an Ashley Shannon service ace on their way to the 25-20 win.
“After the first set, we might have relaxed a little bit just because you win a game relatively easily, and they jumped all over us in the second game,” Funsten said. “We won the match by playing our way back into the second game and not letting it just get away.
“Some coaches say, ‘We’ll let this one go and then pick it up.’ I always say, ‘Let’s play better. We may not be able to win this game, but we’re going to try. If we’re playing better, we’ll carry it over.’ We carried it over, but the whole third game we were taking their best shots. We were going back and forth.”
In the fourth set, the Vikings opened up a 14-7 lead when a Garnet Valley hit sailed out of play, and a kill by Emma Andraka put the Vikings on top 16-8. Back-to-back kills by Andraka and Brady gave the Vikings a 23-15 lead. They won it on a Brady kill.
“Upper Merion has such a long legacy of being good,” Brady said. “Everybody is – ‘We’re going to beat Upper Merion.’ Every year I hear people say, ‘This is the year we’re going to beat Upper Merion.’
“We just have to keep using our momentum to push us forward.”
The defending district champions will face fifth-seeded Bishop Shanahan Saturday’s District One AAA title game at Abington High School (1:30 p.m.)
“We’re seniors – most of our team is seniors, and to be able to defend our district title from last year is incredible,” Brady said. “Last year it was really awesome when we won, and I was really worried that we might not be able to do that, but boom – we’re here in the district championship.”
“It means a lot to our team,” Emily Shannon added. “We’re basically known for going far, but to us, we have to push ourselves more because we’re known that we can go far. We were all so excited today.”
Brady led the Vikings at the net with 11 kills and three blocks. Andraka added nine kills and 23 digs, and the freshman is a key part of a veteran lineup.
“I still remember when my oldest daughter Laura played for Joe (Boland) in grade school, and the first time Joe yelled at her she was so excited,” Funsten recalled. “I said, ’You okay?’ She said, ‘Yeah, Mr. Boland yelled at me. That means he thinks I can play.’
“That’s where I am with Emma. I just let her play because she’s a good player and has a lot of skills. She just has to learn the little things, so at different times I would stop and say, ‘You have to make this play, you have to make that play.’
“Thinking of the match, she made some digs off of blocks that she doesn’t ordinarily make. She’s a really good volleyball player. At this point in the season, with all the experiences she’s had, she’s not a freshman anymore. Playing varsity from day one, we’ve played the best teams in the state, and she’s survived.”
Carpenter had eight kills and four blocks while Carolyn Helenski had seven kills and four blocks. Setter Kailyn McNamee had 21 assists. Ashley Shannon led the defense with 26 digs.
#5 BISHOP SHANAHAN 3, #1 PENNRIDGE 0 (25-12, 25-18, 25-13)
The Lady Rams found themselves in uncharted territory when they took the court in Thursday’s district semifinal match, and it didn’t take long for Shanahan to seize control of the first set, turning a 5-5 tie into a 17-6 lead on their way to the decisive win.
“The biggest thing was – they set the tone,” coach Zech States said. “Game one they came out, they wanted it more than we did.
“We knew this was a good team coming into it, but we didn’t set the tone. After that first game, we pretty much handed it to them. It’s hard because I know what they’re capable of doing and then watching this and not getting them motivated enough to play the way they should – it wasn’t one of our best games, for sure.”
According to their coach, the Rams inexperience may have played a role in their struggles.
“That’s what it comes down to – they’re experienced, and we’re not,” States said. “We’re not used to this at all, and they’ve been here before. They’ve done this before, and they know exactly what to do.
“That definitely played a factor in it. It’s no excuse, but they’ve done this before.”
Keefe wasn’t using her team’s inexperience as an excuse.
“I think it was mainly what we did – we did not play our best at all,” the senior captain said. “We didn’t come out strong. We had a lot of nerves in the beginning, and that really ruined us for the entire match.
“They had strong blocks, but we just fell apart when we needed to be strong. I thought we were going to be off to a good start, but they really weren’t doing anything we haven’t seen before.”
A statistic that might well tell the story of the match was the fact that Pennridge’s talented middles combined for just four kills.
“They put a big block up,” States said. “Usually we get our middles going, and we couldn’t get our middles going at all tonight. Between both of our middles, we had four kills, and we used them quite a bit.
“That’s a big part of it – not being able to utilize our middles like we normally do. We had two good outsides, and they might not have been blocking our outsides the way they were our middles, but they definitely played solid defense and were digging us.”
Kelly Bergen led the Rams’ defensively with 27 digs. Keefe had 17 assists while sophomore Steph Judkins had nine kills.
The Rams will face third-seeded Garnet Valley in Saturday’s third place game.
“It’s still good we have something else to look forward to,” States said. “It’s good to have states to look forward to.
“We have one day to practice, and we really have to use it because Garnet Valley is not going to be easy. It’s going to be like this. They’re going to want it, and we’re going to have to come and battle.”
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