Pennridge captured its second district title in three years on Thursday night. To view photos of the match, please visit the Photo Gallery.
#1 PENNRIDGE 3, #3 SOUDERTON 2 (22-25, 15-25, 25-19, 25-20, 15-7)
Early in the second game of Thursday’s District One AAA title match against Souderton, Pennridge senior Ryan Chinnici, who had just slammed home a kill, clenched his firsts and shouted, “Let’s go.”
The senior captain’s attempt to fire up his teammates – for the moment, at least - fell on deaf ears as the heavily favored Rams, who trailed 11-5 at the time, went on to drop the game 25-15 and found themselves trailing an inspired Indian squad 2-0.
“Volleyball is such an emotional game, and if you come out flat, you will not win,” Chinnici said. “My focus right then was not getting a big play, it was just getting the team going. We were flat, and we needed to pick it up and get excited about every single point.”
With their backs pressed firmly against the wall, the top-seeded Rams found the fire they lacked in the first two games, rallying to win the next three to earn a hard fought 3-2 win over the Indians.
“Before the third game, we went in the huddle and said, ‘This is a new game. We’re going to beat them 3-0. This is not the third game, this is the first game. We’re going to start over. Whoever comes out hot, that’s who’s going to win this game,’” Chinnici said. “We got excited about it, we got that energy up, and the energy brought the execution, and that was huge.
“It’s so hard to come back from 0-2. A lot of teams wouldn’t be able to do that. I’m so glad we were able to do it. It shows a lot of character.”
The district title was the second in three years for the Rams, who improved to 20-0.
“It’s awesome,” coach Dave Childs said. “Tha
t’s why we play. That was a goal since the beginning of the year.”
“We feel like we earned it,” senior co-captain Erik Moyer added. “I almost feel like I’d want to win in three, but I wouldn’t change that. It was a good experience. It was really fun.
“This was a good lesson for us for the next round. We’re going to have to come out fired up and ready to play.”
Derek Rush (17 kills, 12 digs, four blocks), Erik Moyer (14 kills, five blocks), Kalin Nelson (12 kills, eight digs), Ryan Chinnici (nine kills, 12 digs, three aces) and Mike Bollinger (five kills, seven blocks) led the Rams at the net. Christian Lizana anchored the defense with 16 digs while setter Austin McVaugh had 50 assists.
The Indians were led by the 18-kill effort of Andrew Diesel. Chris Kluka added 16 kills and six blocks. Ryan Davison had 10 kills and four blocks. Matt Wittig had three blocks and eight digs. Defensively, the Indians were led by Greg Mazza (19 digs) and Gabe Clemmer (12 digs).
The Indians – who won just one game in two regular season matches against the Rams combined – served notice that things might be different this time around. Kluka delivered a kill for the first point of the match, and when Diesel slammed home a kill out of a Ram timeout, the Indians led 7-2.
The Indians still led 15-10 after a Diesel winner and upped that lead to 17-11 after another Diesel kill. The Rams rallied to make it an 18-17 game and still trailed by just two (23-21) after a Moyer block, but a Diesel kill and a Ram serve out of play gave the Indians the big win.
Game two belonged to the Indians, who led 8-1 after back-to-back Ram hitting miscues. It was a 20-10 game after a Davison kill as the Indians rolled to the 25-15 win.
“We came out on fire,” Souderton coach Brad Garrett said. “Blocked really well, controlled the ball real well. I didn’t think Pennridge served quite as aggressively as they had early in the season against us in the first two games, and we really controlled the game.
“They made some adjustments, started going for it more on their serves and put a little doubt in our heads. It didn’t work out exactly as we wanted it to.”
No one was more puzzled by the Rams’ slow start than coach Dave Childs.
“I didn’t know what was happening,” the Rams coach said. “We haven’t played like that in a long time. We just came out flat, and I don’t know why.”
What turned it around?
“The realization that they were down 2-0 and needed to start playing Pennridge volleyball if they wanted to at least make it a good game,” Childs said. “They killed us the first two games. It wasn’t even close.
“I don’t know what the scores were, but play-wise, it just wasn’t close. You have to give Souderton credit. They came out, and they put pressure on us. They played with nothing to lose.”
In game three, the Rams began showing signs of life. They opened up a 12-6 lead after a Moyer block and upped that lead to seven after a Chinnici kill. The Rams went on to earn a 25-19 win.
“Those first two games were awful,” Moyer said. “They came out with nothing to lose, and they played great. We were overconfident and made too many errors.
“We just knew we could beat them – we had done it twice before, and we had to come out ready to play. We just woke up after that.”
The Indians opened up a 6-3 lead in game four, but the Rams pulled to within one (9-8) after a Moyer kill. A Souderton hit out of play was followed by a Nelson block after a long rally, and the Rams led 10-9.
“Our team relies on the block because we’re a good blocking team,” Moyer said. “It’s all about confidence. You have to jump higher and reach over. We were blocking smarter, which made our defense a lot easier.”
The teams were still deadlocked 12-12, but a Souderton net serve sparked a 5-1 Ram run that culminated with a Rush winner and put the Rams on top 17-13. The Indians made it a 17-15 game after a Davison kill and still trailed by just two (21-19) after a Kluka kill, but another Souderton net serve was followed by a Nelson kill. A Kolby Smith service ace gave the Rams a 24-19 lead, and they won it on a Nelson kill.
According to Rush, momentum can be more important than emotion in the sport of volleyball.
“Emotion definitely helps, but what we all try to emphasize is execution,” Rush said. “In the first two games, I felt as though we had emotion, but we were more angry, upset and frustrated instead of focused and executing and doing what we needed to do. When everybody is feeling it, you have that feel to the game. I said to Austin, ‘You have five hitters out here. Just set anyone.’
“The last three games, we were all putting the ball away, whether we had a tip or had to hit around people, and setting up the blocks is really what got us going.”
Armed with all sorts of momentum, the Rams opened up a 4-2 lead after a Bollinger block in the winner-take-all fifth game. The Indians made it a one-point game after a Diesel block, but the Rams went on to open up an 8-4 lead after back-to-back Rush winners.
A Nelson kill put the Rams on top 11-5, and they never looked back, rolling to the 15-7 win with Chinnici delivering a block for match point.”
“The switch that they turned on was something we haven’t seen this year,” Garrett said. “They’re undefeated and number five in the state for a reason. They have enough weapons that if someone is struggling, they can steady the course until that guy picks it up.
“That guy for them tonight – Erik (Moyer) really picked up his blocking, and we just couldn’t get anything by without him touching it. It made it easy for their defense. They got a lot of digs out of his touches, and he did a good job of blocking our middles there at the end.”
The Rams, according to Chinnici, learned a valuable lesson.
“We can’t underestimate teams, and that’s what we did,” the Rams’ senior captain said. “We knew we were going to win. That’s what we came in knowing.
“We knew they were better, and it would be harder, but we came in thinking we could win this game. They surprised us. They blocked the crap out of us in games one and two. I think we did a lot better in games three through five.”
Souderton and Pennridge will return to William Tennent on Tuesday night for opening round state playoff games. The Indians will play in the 6 p.m. game while the Rams will play at 7:30 p.m.
#2 PENNSBURY 3, #5 CHRISTOPHER DOCK 1 (25-13, 23-25, 25-15, 25-19)
The Falcons rebounded from their disappointing semifinal loss to Souderton to defeat the Pioneers in Thursday’s third place game.
The Falcons received important contributions from Pat Merrick (19 kills, .317 hitting percentage, nine digs, one block, one dig), Sean Kropp (17 kills, three aces, 10 digs), Chris Spano (11 kills, .450 hitting percentage, six digs, one block), Jeff Yasalonis (51 assists, six digs, two blocks, one ace), Dalton Zimmerman (five blocks, four digs, four kills) and Troy Pereira (11 digs).
“Shane Kropp played really hot, and Troy Pereira played well like he always does,” coach Justin Fee said. “A few other guys were a little bit down offensively.
“I felt like it was very, very important against Christopher Dock to go back to what we try to do offensively in terms of philosophy – reverse flowing the ball, setting the ball across the court and making the other team’s middles move a lot more and maybe tire them out a little bit on offense.
“Chris Spano had a good game, and I think that was partially due to the fact that Jeff (Yasalonis) was making smart sets. He was giving Spano the ball at the right time when literally the middles weren’t expecting it. Everybody knows that an outside hitter could get the ball when the pass goes towards them. It’s just the easy set. Jeff chose to make the harder set and do it right.”
The Falcons will travel to Bethlehem Liberty High School for Tuesday’s opening round state contest at 7:30 p.m. They will face the winner of the Emmaus/Parkland match.
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