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QUAKERTOWN – Angel Garcia raised his eyebrows and smiled.How fired up was Quakertown’s outside hitter for Tuesday’s District One Tournament opener against North Penn?
“A lot,” the soft-spoken Garcia said. “A lot.”
It was a ferocious kill by Garcia that wound up in the arms of a North Penn player at the net for match point that put the finishing touches on a no-doubt-about-it 3-0 win over the Knights (25-20, 25-22, 25-21).
“This was great,” Garcia said. “We practice very hard, and that’s why (we won).”
Garcia was one of three Panthers to contribute seven kills, joining Chris Long and Brian Stenson as the team leaders in that category. Tyler Palmer led the defense with eight digs.
“I think we played better as a team than we usually do,” Stenson said. “We came together tonight. We didn’t all play our best game, but it all worked out.”
The two teams split their season series, but when it mattered most, the Panthers came out on top.
“We have been up and down all season,” coach Andy Snyder said. “There wasn’t any consistency.
“The last couple of practices we’ve been working on getting to 10 points first, staying on top and keeping the other team off their game. We were getting behind early in games early in the season, and we’d play catch-up. It’s much easier to start out with a lead than playing catch-up.
“Tonight we started off a little slow, but games two and three they executed the plans we wanted and got the win.”
The Knights were led by the 11-kill, three-block effort of Kyle Sinding. Bhavit Vora had 10 kills and four blocks, and Tyler Kruszewski had eight kills. Pak had 24 assists.“They played hard, and we didn’t play poorly,” coach Kevin Eck said. “We were just flat and didn’t have the energy to see things through.
“We’re not a team of scrappers, we’re a team of momentum.”
The Knights never really had momentum in Tuesday’s match, but the Panthers did.
“We had a lot of fans out tonight, a lot more than usual, and it really helped the momentum,” Stenson said. “They had 1/8 the fans we had, and everyone that was yelling was for us.”
In game one, the two teams were deadlocked 11-11 after a Kruszewski kill, but Stenson answered with a kill for the Panthers. Another Kruszewski kill knotted the score, but a Knight serving error gave the Panthers the lead.
Sinding answered with a kill to knot the score and sparked a 5-1 run that included a Sinding block and kill that gave the Knights a 17-13 lead and prompted a Quakertown timeout.
The Panthers responded, knotting the score 18-18 on a Garcia kill. A Knight hit in the net gave the Panthers a lead they would not lose as they went on to earn a 25-20 win with Drew Moyer delivering a block for game point.
In game two, the two teams were deadlocked 7-7 after a Kruszewski kill, and it was still a 10-10 game before the Panthers used a 4-0 run to go on top 14-10. Included in that run was a Garcia kill as well as back-to-back blocks by Long.
Garcia delivered a wicked ace serve late in game two that ignited the Quakertown faithful and prompted Eck, whose team trailed 19-14, to call a timeout.
The Panthers’ lead grew to 21-15 before Vora went on a mini-run of his own for the Knights.
Vora delivered a kill and followed that with a pair of blocks, the second teamed with Chris Davidson, and the Knights trailed by just three (21-18). A Pak service ace made it a two-point game, but the Panthers, after calling a timeout, closed out the game with a 4-3 spurt.
The Panthers jumped out to a quick 12-5 lead in the third game. Included in that run were back-to-back Garcia service aces.
The Knights battled gamely, trimming that lead to two, but they would get no closer, falling 25-21 when Garcia delivered the kill for match point.
“I don’t think we played poorly,” Eck said. “The word I always use is sometimes we don’t play with the amount of passion we should but more than that it’s maturity.
“We have three guys that have more than just this year of varsity experience. To take that jump from the jayvee game to the varsity level, the speed changes considerably, and I think we had trouble adjusting to that.”
While the Panthers improved to 11-7, the Knights closed out their season with a 9-8 record.
“I wish we could have beaten them and at least had a chance to play Pennsbury,” Pak said of a potential matchup against the district’s top seed.
Instead, it is the Panthers who will move on.
“It’s a challenge,” Stenson said. “We’re going to see what happens.”
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