D-11 Volleyball: NW Lehigh ousts Blue Mountain

ORWIGSBURG – Northwestern Lehigh rocked the house, pulled out all the stops and found a way to take out Blue Mountain on Monday night in the opening round of the District 11 Class 3A girls’ volleyball tournament.

Needing just three sets to settle the issue with the Eagles, 26-24, 25-13, 25-14, the Tigers now advance to play top-seeded and Eastern Pennsylvania Conference champion Allentown Central Catholic (19-0) on Wednesday at Central Catholic.

The Tigers (13-9) reversed an earlier loss at Blue Mountain in four sets; this time things were a whole lot different. Coach Mike Maston redistributed the offensive set, turned to a finely tuned trio of middle hitters, setters and their Libero to turn aside any attack the host team was trying to conjure up.

“We made some adjustments with our offensive attack,” Maston said. “They’re a strong team in the (front) line, so we got some great matchups and some really outstanding play from a number of our girls.”

There was leaping senior middle hitter Norah Silfies, who was set up by Daisy Stringer. When it was needed, Libero Alexa George was defending, too. Then support came from rangy Bailey Murray as an outside hitter. And when Blue Mountain failed to pick up senior middle hitter Siena Almonti, she added firepower to the attack.

“Our energy was a lot higher on the floor,” Silfies said when asked about the difference from the first meeting. “We just played better overall, that’s mainly it.”

The Tigers were stutter-stepping at the onset. The Eagles (10-9) looked every bit the better team in gushing out to a 12-5 lead, turning to freshman outside hitter Alexa Marshall. If she wasn’t picking up the tempo, there was sophomore Zoe Leibensperger at the net. And the way junior Jaedyn Bartholomew was clogging things up, the Eagles were in a good groove.

“We started out strong, but to be honest they played the better game,” Blue Mountain coach Gregg Gergely said. “The first time we played, we made few mistakes. This time they made few mistakes.”

To be sure, Blue Mountain looked smug leading 20-15, but then things slowly went Northwestern Lehigh’s way. It used a speed game, got the momentum in its corner and ripped off an 11-4 run to yank down the first-set win when Silfies levitated high like a whirlybird and powered through Blue Mountain’s defense for the point.

“I was a bit nervous because they beat us the last time we played them,” Stringer said. However, she said once things got rolling the entire team’s confidence took an upswing.

“The way we won that first set, it really was a big boost for all of us,” the sophomore setter said.

That was evident in the next two sets. The Tigers wiggled away inch by inch at the start of the second set. Northwestern Lehigh was up 7-2, then all of a sudden, bingo in a flash, the Tigers let loose with a haymaker.

If Silfies wasn’t hammering home kills, Elyse Browning came off the bench to find her attack. Murray was getting into the attack mode, too. Add in Shannon Green’s play and the Tigers were skating out to a commanding two-set lead.

“You know we started off a little slow, then we found our groove,” Matson said.

Matson attributed to the changing of the offensive attack, from the previous meeting.

“We made a few adjustments, so we knew what to expect coming into this match,” the coach explained.

Northwestern Lehigh turned on the faucet full bore in the third set, never letting off the throttle. It took a 10-3 lead, made it 18-9 and the busses were starting to heat up. There were all kinds of attackers from Silfies to Browning to Green. In other words, the Tigers were relentless.

“We found a lot of open spots, which mainly are in the middle (of the floor),” Stringer said.

Silfies led her team with 15-kills, George registered 17 digs and Green 28 had assists for the Tigers. For the Eagles, Bartholomew tacked on 11 kills and had nine digs. Marshall collected six kills and five digs, while Staller compiled four kills, four digs and two blocks.