Shaler gets revenge for WPIALs, stops North Catholic girls volleyball short of PIAA semifinals
MCCANDLESS TWP, Allegheny County — North Catholic girls volleyball head coach Amanda Fetter didn't yet have the words to describe what she saw.
She had just seen her Trojanettes fall 3-1 in a PIAA Class 5A quarterfinal to Shaler by scores of 24-26, 27-25, 11-25 and 22-25.
“I'm just still kind of processing what just happened,” Fetter said.
The Trojanettes (18-3) had beaten the Titans (18-3) 3-1 in the WPIAL semifinals Nov. 4. The WPIAL third-seed Shaler advances to take on WPIAL champion Peters Township, which beat NC in that final, in Tuesday's semifinals at a site and time to be determined. Peters Township (23-1) beat District 1’s West Chester Rustin in the other quarterfinal.
This time around, North Catholic dropped the opening set.
The Trojans held a 24-23 lead in the set before a Shaler timeout. The Titans evened matters right after, though Fetter disagreed with a call on the play, and then Sophia Spynda pushed the Titans ahead with a kill, which was the seventh and final lead change of the set.
A Trojanettes hitting error ended it.
The lead changed hands nine times in the second set, which also featured 18 ties. North Catholic went ahead 11-7 at one point.
“They responded and they battled,” Fetter said of her girls. “And we wish Shaler the best of luck.”
Trojanettes sophomore pin hitter Jillian Kalis, who Fetter described as “just powerful and really good at what she does,” notched 14 kills over the first two sets, including three late in the second to even matters heading into the third set.
But the Titans raced out to an 8-1 lead in that set to take a 2-1 set lead.
“Honestly, we just needed to execute better, and we didn't,” Fetter said. “We couldn't put the ball down or put the ball away. You're not gonna win matches if you're not scoring points.”
“I think we were all just playing for ourselves,” Kalis said of what went wrong in the third set. “We weren't playing as a team, but we were still working hard and trying to get every point we could. It didn't come out as what we wanted, but I think we still pushed hard until the very end.”
North Catholic led late in the final set — thanks in part to the offensive efforts of middle hitter Kaylee Garr and setter/pin hitter Chloe Summerville, both juniors — but couldn't pull away. The Titans ended on a 5-0 run.
“We pushed so hard to get to the quarterfinals this year,” Kalis said. “We came together as a family. We weren't just teammates to each other, we were more like family.”
