MIDDLETOWN — After two sets of Tuesday’s PIAA Class A girls’ volleyball semifinal match, it appeared Marian had found solutions to the problem which plagued the Fillies in the first two sets against North Star.
But it was too late.
The District 5 champion Cougars overcame their first loss in a set all season and came away with a 25-20, 25-23, 19-25, 25-14 victory over the Fillies to advance to Saturday’s championship match against Bishop Canevin at Johnstown’s Richland High School.
“I think, straight up hitters, yeah, we could match up, but they got the ball up from every one of our hitters, but we couldn’t get the ball up on their hitters,” Marian head coach John Fallabel said after the Cougars (25-0) sent Marian to just its third loss in 23 matches this season.
It left tears in the eyes of senior setter Courtney McCall, one of the members of a class that reached two straight PIAA championship finals with one title to its credit.
“We didn’t play with as much heart as I hoped, but I really couldn’t be happier with the season we had,” she said. “Playing with this team, it’s been a great four years and a great run.”
But in the end, the bouts of inconsistency which marked the season came back to hurt the Fillies on Tuesday night. Fallabel admitted this year’s team played differently than the previous two Marian squads.
“It’s never been easy for this team, and it was a struggle again tonight and the other team came out on top,” he said.
But perhaps for the first time all season, North Star had to recoup after Marian rallied for its victory in the third set.
“Marian Catholic is a nice team. They’re a well-coached team. They’re strong. They’re aggressive,” North Star head coach Tony Crisafulli said. “They got us out of our rhythm in the third set. We started to do things we’re not accustomed to doing, so we just needed to settle back down and play our game in the fourth set.”
Thanks to two aces by senior Kayla Rice, the Cougars did just that, sprinting to a 4-0 lead. North Star, which reaches the PIAA finals for the first time since 2008, led the entire set, pulling away from an 8-6 lead and winning the match on a tap from Rice.
“We knew they were good. We scouted them a little bit,” Marian senior middle hitter Abby Stankiewitch said. “We knew their middle (junior Jackie Stanko) was our biggest opponent, but it was our team for the most part. We have ups and downs and we’re always like that. It was us today. It wasn’t them. It was us.”
A slow start also put Marian behind in the opening set. North Star ran out to a 14-3 lead behind Stanko, who finished with 23 kills and 10 service points. She posted four kills in the Cougars’ first nine points.
Marian cut the gap to three at 21-18, but Stanko responded with two more kills and North Star won the set on a dink by Kayla Berkebile, who had 10 kills in the match.
The Fillies turned the late momentum into a closely fought second set that was tied eight times, the last at 22. But Stanko served two points in a row and Marian was whistled twice for contact with the net to surrender North Star’s final two points.
The Cougars then gained two kills by Stanko and one each from Berkebile to lead 5-0 in the third set, but Marian battled back. Eventually, the set was tied nine times before the Fillies’ Miranda Antiga went behind the service line. Stankiewitch returned an overset over the net for one point and then blocked Stanko’s shot to the court for another.
That gave Marian an edge that senior Maureen Kloap preserved by serving four straight points. But after North Star scored to regain serve, Stankiewitch ended the set with a kill.
Though Marian began the fourth set with the serve, Berkebile prevented any run with a block of Abby Pilla’s dink attempt on the set’s first point. Rice then made her service run, leaving Marian to battle back the entire set to no avail.
Stankiewitch finished with 14 kills and two blocks. Marian also got 10 kills, five aces and 17 digs from Jasmine Mooney, while Kloap had eight kills and 19 digs. McCall posted 34 assists, two kills and six digs, and Gianna Agosti added 32 digs.
For North Star, Rice had 14 kills, two aces and 16 service points. Senior setter Courtney Schrock posted 17 assists while fellow senior Olivia Zuchelli had 24.
“We got beat, and that’s OK. It’s a learning experience. As long as we had four straight trips to the (PIAA) semifinals, I’m OK,” Fallabel said, adding the process of building another state contender now begins even as he misses an outstanding class of senior athletes.
“I’ve got five or six young players. We’re going to be really young next year, and we’re going to move forward. It’s all you can do. They graduate, and that’s the good thing about them. They move on into life and that’s what part of my job is, to move on and prepare them for life.”
