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EASTON — All season, Jack Kablick has been singing the praises of Chris Mennig.
At one point, the Holy Redeemer head coach even admitted his attacker was kind of flying under the radar.
Guess what? Mennig won’t be low profile too much longer.
The junior was humongous in the second set of Saturday’s state quarterfinal. With Redeemer down by four, Mennig started to swing away – recording six of his nine kills as the Royals climbed back. Redeemer closed the set on a 10-4 run and dominated the third en route to a 3-0 victory over Lancaster Mennonite in the PIAA Class 2A boys’ volleyball state quarterfinals at Easton Area Middle School.
Set scores were 25-21, 25-21 and 25-11.
With the win, the District 2 champ moves into the Final Four where two-time defending state champ Northeastern awaits. The Bobcats eliminated North Pocono in the other quarterfinal at Easton, 3-0. The semifinal match will be played on Tuesday at Exeter Twp. High School in Reading at 5:30 p.m.
“I just knew that I had to step my game up to help the team out,” Mennig said. “We made some errors in that set, but were able to bounce right back. We don’t worry about the lead. We just focus on our game. Coming in, I never thought that I would be as big of a part as I am. The coaches really helped me to fit in, and taught me how to play.”
After a nip-and-tuck first set where the Royals scored five of the last seven points, ended by a Mike Conlon pass to Mike Gatusky for the kill, the next stanza was the real turning point.
Lancaster Mennonite, runners-up in District 3 and ranked No. 3 in the state entering Saturday, quickly regrouped – leading 12-8 early and 17-15 midway through the set.
No doubt, it was a position Redeemer didn’t find itself in much during the Wyoming Valley Conference regular season.
But the deficit wasn’t much a big deal.
“We’ve seen it all, and we know each one of these teams are incredible. You are going to find yourself down at times,” said Gatusky, who had a match-high 19 kills. “To be honest, I don’t pay attention to the score. I just play hard on every single point, and I know that my teammates are doing the same thing.”
The Blazers started to key in on Gatusky and Carr, who combined for 15 kills in the opening set. That left open Mennig, who has been on the tear in the last month with an outrageous hitting percentage.
He answered the call.
The lefty went cross-court. Hit the ball right down the middle. Fired a bullet that clipped inside the back line.
And it left Mennonite searching for answers.
“They were tagging (John) Carr and Gatusky,” Kablick said. “We wanted to go to someone they didn’t expect, and that was Chris Mennig. He plays such a big role for us. His play didn’t surprise me because this is the way he’s been playing the last five weeks. It may have surprised Mennonite, though.”
With Mennig dropping darts, Redeemer rallied – thanks to a 5-0 run on Conlon’s serve. And when the Blazers recovered, it was too late. The Royals completed a set-clinching 9-1 run and ended it when Carr’s tap over the net was whacked out of play by the Mennonite libero.
“We threw a triple block in lately because their hitter, Jarred Sands,” Kablick said. “We tried to triple him as much as we could. And once you start to block people at any level, they start to alter their swing. That was our plan. We wanted to make him change his swing.”
The Blazers never recovered.
Kenny Rexer opened the third with four straight points behind the service line, and seven minutes into the set, Redeemer was out to a 14-4 lead.
Again, it was another strong close for the D2 champ – scoring the last four points in the match, the final coming off the hand of Mark Liskowicz.
“I think their blocking was a little better than ours,” Lancaster Mennonite head coach Gary Martin said. “They played more confident than we did, and that was important. We had played some big games this year, but we just didn’t quite have it today. I thought we served well, but our offense wasn’t good enough. That’s because of the blocking. They were better in that aspect. We got some touches at the net, but not many outright blocks.”
Gatusky and Carr combined for another big night in the state playoffs, recording 36 kills. Conlon added a match-high 45 assists.
Andrew Baak had a team-high 11 kills for Mennonite as team leaders Sands and Zack Alderman were held to just a combined four kills.
Holy Redeemer 3, Lancaster Mennonite 0
L `21`21`11
H `25`25`25
LM Leaders: Andrew Baak 11 kills; Evan Augsburger 6 kills; Garyd Martin 18 assists
HR Leaders: Mike Conlon 45 assists; Mike Gatusky 19 kills, 3 blocks; John Carr 17 kills, 4 blocks; Alex Kotch 13 digs; Chris Mennig 9 kills.