By Lisa Byers
May 9, 2008
May 08, 2008 11:09 pm
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SAEGERTOWN — It wasn’t for the District 10 championship. It wasn’t even for a clinch of the top seed in the District 10 Tournament.
But for Saegertown and Maplewood and the swarm of fans each team brought to Thursday night’s Region 1 boys volleyball match, it didn’t really matter.
The PENNCREST School District rivals put on quite a show for their following yesterday with Saegertown rallying to capture a huge 20-25, 26-24, 25-21, 17-25, 15-13 win.
With the win, the Panthers pulled into a tie for first place with the Tigers in Region 1 at 10-2. Meadville (9-3) and Cambridge Springs (9-3) are also just a game back in the race with two regular season matches remaining for everyone.
“We played well,” Saegertown coach Justin Johnson said following the match. “It’s Senior Night and the guys want to win on their court and they wanted to do it against Maplewood.”
And for the Panthers it didn’t really matter how long it took.
Saegertown found itself at the service line on consecutive serves just four times in the first game as Robert Cierniakoski and the Tigers rolled to a 25-20 win. Cierniakoski had seven kills in the game with the Panthers collecting just nine as a team.
But Saegertown didn’t stay down for long, jumping out to a 5-2 lead in the second game. Maplewood did come back to tie it and took an 8-7 lead on a rotation violation by the Panthers, but Saegertown regained the lead three rotations later on a backrow attack by Josh Peters.
Saegertown retained at least a share of the lead until Maplewood went on a 5-1 run to go up 24-23. Kyle Beatty tied it back up for the Panthers with a kill. He added another kill and teamed up with Patrick Amy on a block to seal the game.
That game turned out to be huge for the Panthers, who responded with a 25-21 come-from-behind win in the third game to take a one-game advantage.
“Winning that second game … that was the key,” Johnson said.
Of course, Maplewood didn’t go down without fighting.
The Tigers came back recharged in the fourth game and took advantage of several attack errors by the Panthers and a strong blocking game by Aaron Bryant to come away with a somewhat easy 25-17 win. That set up the wild finish both Saegertown and Maplewood have become accustomed to when the two teams meet.
It also, unfortunately, led to a big loss for the Tigers on personnel.
Saegertown and Maplewood clawed and scratched in the final set.
The Tigers came out to take a 3-1 lead in the game, but Saegertown rallied back and took the lead for good at 6-5 on a kill by Amy that cost the Tigers an outside hitter in Jackson Ferringer.
Ferringer injured his knee in a collision while trying to dig up the kill by Amy. He did not return and his condition is unknown.
Maplewood struggled to regroup initially, falling behind by as many as three following the injury. But the Tigers did eventually respond, knotting the score at 13-13 on a kill error by the Panthers.
Saegertown went up 14-13 on an attack error, following what appeared to be an illegal backrow hit by the Panthers. Maplewood coach Sheila Bancroft and several players argued the no-call to no avail, however, and Beatty answered with his second block of the game to seal the win.
“It was a great match,” Bancroft said. “I think both teams could have played better at times. But the toughest thing is to lose when you lose a player at the end.
“We can recover from a loss, but when you lose one of your starters, it’s going to be harder to do.”
Bancroft wasn’t sure of the extent of the injury or Ferringer’s status.
Several players from both teams had outstanding individual matches.
For Saegertown, Ben Wetsell led the way with 18 kills. Kyle Beatty added 15 kills and eight stuff blocks. Zach Beatty added six kills. Kevin Schmalzried dished out 43 assists with four kills of his own.
Cierniakoski led all players with 21 kills to go along with 25 digs for the Tigers. Bryant finished with 14 blocks and 11 kills. Ferringer had 10 kills, eight digs and five blocks. Michael Groshner had 31 digs. Nicholas Bancroft handed out 53 assists.
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