Blog Report By Kelly Goodsel
Corry Volleyball Head Coach
The match-up that the PVCA (Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association) rankings have been pointing to all season, it was the #1 ranked Trinity Shamrocks versus the #2 Corry Lady Beavers playing for the state championship on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Mechanicsburg, PA. The Dome at Cumberland Valley high school play host as a packed house witnessed a very well-played match on both sides of the net. Trinity was able to take the match in three hard-fought games 25-20, 25-23, and 25-22 to once again claim the title of state champions.
Corry jumped out to an early 4-1 lead on three kills by sophomore outside hitter Grace Allen, senior middle hitter Aubrey Chase, and senior opposite hitter Allison Sawyer. Trinity responded with a 5-1 run of their own before senior opposite hitter Emmalee Carr had a kill down the line to tie the score 6-6. Trinity went on a 10-4 run before coach Goodsel called Corry’s first time out, trailing 10-16. Corry responded, trimming the lead to 17-20 on a Makenna Moore (senior libero) service ace, only to see Trinity close out the set on 5-3 run and took the first set 25-20.
The second set Trinity led most of the way by one or two points, all the way up to 16-15, when Trinity went on a 6-2 run and led 22-17 when Corry took a timeout. With the support of a huge and loud Corry crowd, the Corry team responded with a kill by Grace Allen and two kills by Halle Albers, and after a Trinity ball-handling error, Trinity called timeout leading by just one, 22-21. Coming out of the timeout, senior defensive specialist Sydney Woods continued serving aggressively and Halle Albers pounded a kill off the Trinity block to tie the score 22-22. After Corry was called for a ball handling error and a Trinity service ace, Halle Albers scored again to make the score 24-23 Trinity. Unfortunately, the ensuing Corry serve sailed just long and Trinity took the second set 25-23.
The third set was going to test the mental toughness of the Corry volleyball team, having been close in the first two sets but coming up short was tough to take. Similar to the third set of the state quarter-finals match against Richland, Corry came out aggressive and led 5-1 after two kills by Allen, forcing an early Trinity timeout. Corry maintained the four point lead to 13-9 when a few hitting errors helped Trinity tie the score 14-14. The two teams battled point for point and the score was tied at 18-18, 19, 20, 21 and 22-22 when Corry had a perfect pass to the setter and ran a middle attack to miss the line just long and none of the officiating crew saw a touch by the block. Corry took at time out at 23-22, and then at 24-22, before Trinity chopped a shot into the right back corner that Corry wasn’t able to reach and the set was over at 25-22.
In the post match interviews, Coach Goodsel stated: “Congratulations to Trinity, they are a good team with a lot of size, probably five players over 6-foot tall and we don’t have anyone over 5-foot 10. The match really came down to a couple of plays in each set and while we played really well, we made just a couple of mistakes at the wrong time. I am super proud of every individual on the team and the collective effort, to perform well at the highest level with the pressure on is a testament to the kids training, trust in each other, and mental toughness.”
Our outside hitters led the way with 14 kills each for Grace Allen and Halle Albers. Payton McCray and Haley Mumau ran the offense with 18 and 16 assists respectively. Makenna Moore and Sydney Woods led the defensive effort with 22 and 12 digs. Our opposite hitters (Emmalee Carr and Allison Sawyer) combined for 6 kills, and our middles (Aubrey Chase and Sadye Dyne) had 3 kills and 3 digs. Junior Sydney Mineo came in as serving specialist in the second set and sophomore Rylee Nickerson entered the match in the third set as a blocking specialist.
Corry finished the season 19-2, winning the Region 4 and District 10 championships and had a 19-match win streak coming into the PIAA State finals match. They are the State Runner-ups, or as some would call it... "The state public school champions." Corry will celebrate the season on Tuesday night at 6:00pm in the annual volleyball banquet.
Statistical leaders for the day included:
From DeeJ Experience:
Personally, I would like to thank the kids, coaches, and trainers. What an incredible ride we got to go on with this team this year. We are super proud of each an everyone of you! We are blessed with such great families and kids and as always we try to put Corry in the positive light! To our local businesses... THANK YOU! Without your support we don't get to try and capture things to the extent to what we do. We have a dedicated team and you all provide us the means to cover things better than some college teams. For that we are so grateful. To those businesses that sponsored the extra playoff games, you guys rock! and to the people who donated to the playoff fund Thank you oh so much! we only had to pull a small total out from the savings budget because of your extra support! We cannot express our gratitude enough to this community for the support they have shown.
We wanted to respect the moment and the emotions of our girls and it did not seem right to force them to do interviews in not only a gut-wrenching loss, but in a moment that was their last as a Corry Volleyball player. We felt that this was their moment so we didn't want to get in they way of that. We have talk with coach Goodsel and are planning a DeeJ PeeP's Podcast early December to do Volleyball Wrap up program with Coach and all the seniors. This will give everyone time to reflect and digest and put a nice cap on the season. We are super proud of all of you an so honored to be apart of it!
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