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MECHANICSBURG — Losing some of its top players from a season ago, the Holy Redeemer girls volleyball had to once again fulfill some lofty expectations this fall.
With a revamped lineup, featuring 27 new rotations, the Royals were able to overcome an early-season loss to Delaware Valley, which snapped an 188-match win streak in Wyoming Valley Conference play, to secure their 10th straight District 2 title en route to the program’s first PIAA semifinal appearance since 2009.
However, after routing District 5 champion North Star in the first set, something changed for Holy Redeemer. The Royals’ youth was on display the final three sets. The Cougars took advantage of Holy Redeemer’s unforced errors en route to a 14-25, 25-21, 25-19, 25-21 victory to seal a spot in Saturday’s PIAA Class 2A championship.
“It’s disappointing No. 1. Highly disappointing after controlling the first set the way we did,” Holy Redeemer head coach Jack Kablick said. “The growth and the maturity. They’re still young, but the maturity through the year. They got tougher, they got mentally tough, they had a lot of heart and I don’t think there were any complaints from anybody.”
After taking care of business in the first set, Kablick couldn’t put his finger on what swung the momentum into North Star’s favor. His team was energized and confident at the break, but something changed during the second set. He did admit, however, that the Royals’ increased number of unforced errors in the final three sets did play a factor.
After registering just nine unforced errors in the first set, Holy Redeemer had 14 in each of the final three.
“This is totally uncharacteristic, but it also is indicative of a youthful team, and it’s a big stage here today. Your next step is for a state championship, and I think that kind of took over here a little bit,” Kablick said. “I was kind of concerned about that coming into the matchup, but after the first set I was like, ‘OK, this is looking pretty good and maybe we won’t have that.’ (Then) we started off slow in the second set and fell behind early.”
North Star senior middle hitter Jackie Stanko got loose in the final three sets, too.
Part of Holy Redeemer’s game plan going into the match was to keep Stanko in the back row as much as possible, which they successfully did in the first set, but as the match progressed, the Royals couldn’t hold her back there. After a quiet first set, Stanko made up for lost time.
The senior finished with 15 kills and nine service points.
“What we talked about was staying even when Jackie Stanko was on the front row,” Kablick said. “If we could stay even with her, or have a slight lead, we should clean up the next three rotations, right? And that’s exactly what happened in the first set, but when you don’t serve in (bounds it creates problems).
“Every time you miss a serve they’re rotating, and she’s coming right back around again. … The first set we kept her in the back row for a long time and she had no kills right there. There’s a difference,” he said.
Holy Redeemer senior captain Amanda Curcio did her best to keep the Royals in it throughout.
Facing early deficits in both the second and third sets, Curcio played a role in each comeback, before North Star was able to pull away late in each set. Curcio also helped the Royals get out to a 10-8 lead in the final set before the Cougars tied things up 10-10, and pulled away to take both the set and the match.
Curcio finished the match with a team-high 18 kills, 13 assists, six service points, three blocks and a dig.
“I think we came out, we showed that we played Holy Redeemer volleyball,” Curcio said. “In that first set, that was us. In the end we beat ourselves. No team in my belief can beat us. We just beat ourselves.”
While it was a sour ending for Curcio and her fellow seniors — setter Ashley Andrejko and outside hitter Brynn Kukosky — the 2016 campaign was a sweet one. For a team made up of three seniors, three juniors, eight sophomores and a freshman, the program’s first state-semifinals berth since 2009 was satisfying.
Andrejko tallied a team-high 19 assists, six service points, a dig and an ace, while Kukosky added nine kills, nine service points, three digs and a pair of aces.
“When we started we didn’t have any chemistry together because none of us really played together — two of us basically played together — and it was great to see these sophomores and juniors grow together, and as a team we grew together,” Curcio said. “To make it this far was one heck of an accomplishment.”
Considering the Royals only had two players with big-time states experience coming into Tuesday, Kablick believes his team will be ready if they find themselves in a similar position next season.
“Now we’ve been (here) and we’re returning 12 of our 15 varsity, and we have some really good sophomores that weren’t on the varsity,” he said. “It’s looking bright for the future. It really is.”
