And then there were eight.
Included in the elite eight at this weekend’s PIAA Class AAA Tournament at Penn State University are two volleyball programs with vastly different histories.
Pennsbury has been there before. As a matter of fact, this is the third straight season the Falcons have advanced to the state quarterfinals.
Pennridge, meanwhile, is making its inaugural trip to the elite eight. It’s not a coincidence that the fortunes of the program have risen dramatically since Dave Childs took over the helm in the spring of 2006, just two years removed from his high school playing days at Souderton.
He inherited a program that played .500 volleyball and, according to Childs, knew ‘the games it would lose and the games it would win’ heading into the season.
“I didn’t do anything special to get the word out,” he said. “Whoever came in the gym, I took it as my job to make them the best players I could make them.”
Childs may have been young, but he brought a strong knowledge base to his position. A three-year starter under coach Will Lapp at Souderton, Childs was a defensive specialist as a sophomore and junior and was the Indians’ setter his senior year.
“I brought a lot of the things that were done at Souderton over with me,” he said. “Will Lapp was a very good coach.
“He knows the game as well as anyone, and I don’t say that lightly.”
Childs’ cousin, Dan Stover, was an assistant under Lapp and has continued on in that role under coach Brad Garrett. During his senior year, Childs went with Stover to a jayvee tournament where he coached one of Stover’s two squads.
“I enjoyed that,” he said. “It was fun. I asked Will Lapp if I could coach some of his club teams, and he allowed me to.”
A year after graduation, Childs was an assistant under then Pennridge coach Rick Moyer. One year later, he was the head coach and guided the Rams to a 12-6 record.
“That was a team I inherited,” he said of a squad that featured star hitter John Landis. “We set him 99 percent of the time.
“We had six or seven sophomores playing varsity at some point that year.”
Those sophomores developed into seniors that led the Rams to an 11-5 record in 2008.
“That was my first year with my guys,” Childs said.
Since then, the Rams have developed a pair of all-state players in Austin Jacoby and Zech States, and Pennridge boasts one of the premiere programs in the state.
“I wanted to bring the same attitude we had in high school and help develop a program that would be able to compete with the best year in and year out,” Childs said. “We did a little bit last year. Now I want to try and keep it going.”
Falcons’ Top Gun
Pennsbury has had a long line of standout hitters. Senior Joe Yasalonis has moved to the top of that prestigious list.
In Tuesday night’s 3-1 win over Whitehall, the senior outside hitter – who had 22 kills and seven blocks - became the program’s all-time career leader in kills and blocks. Yasalonis has 182 career blocks, breaking the old mark of 174 set by Jesse Harris. He also has 562 career kills, surpassing David Reilly’s mark of 547.
“The first thing that stands out to me when I think about Joe is how quick of a learner he has been since we’ve had him,” Fee said.
Yasalonis burst into the starting lineup as a sophomore and made an immediate impact at the middle of the net.
“By the end of his 10th grade year, he was playing more like a junior,” Fee said. “He’s just a really intelligent kid, a smart kid who’s detail oriented.
“He’s really, really in tune with the strategic parts of volleyball, and he focuses on the little fine details. He’s kind of like a sponge, and he learns real fast.”
It’s a good thing Yasalonis is a quick study since this year Fee asked his 6-8 senior to move to the outside.
Yasalonis – who will be playing middle at the collegiate level – willingly accepted the challenge and has excelled.
“I thought he picked it up real fast,” Fee said. “Last year I switched him to the right side for three or four games, and he was doing pretty good, but he wasn’t doing any better than the kids I already had at that position, so I switched him back.
“In the middle, he was going to be dominant.”
This year, with the graduation of right side hitter Noah Prickett, who is playing at Philadephia Biblical, Fee once again opted to make the switch.
“We really needed someone on the right side to be a dominant force, and we were going to live and die by it,” the Falcons’ coach said. “We had faith he would pick it up because he has been a fast learner.
“He’s doing a really nice job. You have a lot of hitting errors in the learning process, but he has learned how to become a smarter hitter.
“You usually don’t ask someone to step into our offense that relies on that position so much and do a great job in one year. That player will get the most hits, hit the ball well out of the back row and hit the ball well out of the front row. Usually, you bring them along as a 10th grader, they play well as a junior, and they’re a superstar as a senior. I didn’t really give him that time to grow, but he’s doing really great.”
Yasalonis was introduced to volleyball during a mandatory gym class in middle school.
“Basically, we fell in love with the sport, and a bunch of us started playing,” he said.
By the summer after eighth grade, he was playing club volleyball for Bux-Mont. He continues to compete on the club circuit with the Yorkstowne Club squad.
“I started loving the sport,” Yasalonis said. “I loved it all along, and I always dreamed of playing at a high level.”
That dream will come true next year when Yasalonis plays for a Penn State team that is a perennial national power.
“That was my ultimate dream,” he said. “It’s kind of like a dream come true.”
This weekend, Yasalonis will have a chance to make another dream come true when he leads the Falcons into the quarterfinals with a chance to vie for a coveted state crown.
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