Twenty minutes.
That’s all it took for North Penn’s season to turn upside down.
In a span of 20 minutes, the Knights not only lost one of their middle hitters but lost the services of both.
“Yesterday at practice Bhavit (Vora) rolls his ankle, and it turns out he has a fractured foot and is in a cast for six weeks,” coach Kevin Eck said of his 6-8 middle. “Twenty minutes later, Matt (White) separates his shoulder.
“That happened halfway through practice.”
That gave Eck exactly one hour to prepare new players to fill the spots occupied by Vora and White. If Thursday night’s results are worth anything, he did a good job.
The Knights spoiled the Indians’ home debut in their new gym, earning a gutsy 3-1 win (25-23, 25-22, 19-25, 25-19).
“We all had our heads down at first because we knew they were out,” junior Chris Davidson said. “Everybody stepped it up, and we came up big. We deserved to win.
“It was a little scrappy at the beginning, but we picked it up, and we always get energized.”
Davidson was one of the players who found himself in a brand new role as he moved from the outside to the middle.
“I have never had much experience at all in the middle,” he said. “I was late on the blocks, I was late with the hits. I didn’t really know when to go up, but I was working hard. I tried to do my best.
“Last year, Souderton beat us twice. This is a huge win, especially after the losses. Bhavit Vora is 6-8, and this is a huge win without him, especially against one of the better teams in the conference. This is exactly what we needed to push us through the rest of our games.”
Davidson finished the night with seven kills in a solid effort. Teammate Kyle Sinding had a monster night, delivering 19 kills. Michael Hubbard had six kills and three aces. Sophomore setter Matt Elias handed out 32 assists. He also had two aces.
Defensive libero Kevin Cannon set the tone for the Knights’ gritty performance, regularly laying himself out as he attempted to dig up every ball in the vicinity. He finished the night with 35 digs.
“Kevin scraps and gets everything up, everything, and they have Kyle putting the ball away,” Souderton captain Luke Pinto said. “They were running as a team.
“We put our heads down. We came in tonight, and we were dead. We just had nothing, including myself. I need to step up.”
It was Pinto – who had 20 kills in a superb effort – and defensive libero Christian Benner (26 digs) that kept the Indians in the match.
“One of the things we weren’t prepared for was Jake Shoemaker couldn’t go, and no one else has a lot of experience on the left side,” Souderton coach Brad Garrett said of his senior captain. “We couldn’t find a complement to Luke
“When Luke was in the front row, we were fine, but when he was in the back row, we had a couple of rotations where we couldn’t side out. If you look at the stats, Luke had about 65 percent of our offense. You can’t win games against good teams when one guy accounts for that much of your offense. We have to have more balance on offense.”
The Knights – despite falling behind 5-0 out the gate - eked out a 25-23 win in game one and, perhaps more importantly, gained some momentum and much-needed confidence.
In game two, the Knights led 9-4 after an Andrew Willits block, but the Indians rallied to knot the score 10-10. The Knights went back on top 16-11 after a Souderton hit out of play and still led by five (20-15) after a Scott Dickenson kill.
The Indians knotted the score 20-20 after a Jeff Bishop kill and led 21-20 after a Pinto service ace. The Knights went back on top 22-21 after a Souderton hitting miscue and won it on a Sinding kill.
In game three, the Indians opened up a 7-4 lead after a Pinto ace. The Knights rallied to knot the score 13-13, but a Pinto dink sparked a 6-1 Souderton run as the Indians went on to earn a 25-19 win.
Game four was tightly contested, and the two teams were deadlocked 15-15. The Knights led 20-17 after a Sinding kill and still led 21-18 after a Davidson kill. A Sinding dink made it a 23-18 game, and the Knights won it on a crosscourt winner by Sinding on a broken play.
“Tonight I don’t know that we played our best,” Eck said. “We had way too many unforced errors. Our passing was sloppy at times, but we did what we needed to do.
“You talk about a never-say-die attitude. These guys have that.”
The Knights, according to Cannon, dedicated the match to their injured teammates.
“Bhavit and Matt play club with a lot of the players on that team, and this is one game they wanted to play in but couldn’t, so we tried to make up for it,” he said.
While the Knights improved to 3-1, the Indians (2-1) suffered their first loss of the season.
“This is definitely a wake-up call,” Pinto said. “We beat Quakertown in four last week, but it could easily have gone the other way. I think we thought we were rolling on that, and we took our foot off the gas a little bit.
“North Penn comes in and outplays us by far. We know we need to work harder, and we need to play as a team.”
Pennsbury 3, William Tennent 0 (25-7, 25-11, 25-15)
The Falcons extended their SOL winning streak to 55 games with Thursday’s win over the Panthers. Their last loss came on April 20, 2006, when they fell to Neshaminy.
Joe Yasolonis led the Falcons at the net with nine kills and two blocks. Adam Flick and Jim Zaluski each added five kills while Jeremy Rhoads and Dom Tricoche both contributed four. Rhoads also had five service aces. Ryan Burns had four digs and Mike Mamzic had three.
“Ryan Burns did a great job of keeping us rolling tonight,” coach Justin McFee said of his senior setter. “He only had 22 assists in the three games, but he pulled off some tough sets when our passing was a little off.
“We received another solid performance from both of our middle hitters – Adam Flick and Jim Zaluski. They both have been blocking real well and have always been an offensive threat for us in our past three matches.”
Zaluski is hitting .682 with 17 kills and Flick is hitting .536 with 18 kills on the season for the Falcons, who improved to 3-0.
Council Rock South 3, Abington 0 (25-11, 25-22, 25-16)
The Golden Hawks kept pace with Pennsbury, improving to 3-0 in SOL play (5-0 overall). Dave Wilkes led the attack with 10 kills while Cody Nowlin had nine kills. Ben Krouse had 15 digs to lead the defense, and setter Tim Beger had 32 assists.
Council Rock will compete in the Avon Grove Tournament on Saturday and then travels to Pennsbury for a key National Conference showdown on Monday.
Pennridge 3, Central Bucks South 0 (25-7, 25-20, 25-17)
The Rams improved to 4-0 in SOL play with their sweep of the Titans. Cory Chinnici led the Rams with 10 kills while Eric Moyer and Zech States each had six kills. Austin Jacoby had four kills, and Derek Polito, three kills and two blocks. Will Jager had 20 assists and four kills.
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