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Fort Cherry falters in Class A showdown with Bishop Canevin

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By Luke Campbell/Observer-Reporter

Fort Cherry’s Katie Nemec spikes the volleyball over a pair of Bishop Canevin defenders in a Section 3-A match Thursday night.

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Fort Cherry's Macey Roble tries to block an attack from Bishop Canevin's Gillian Golupski in Thursday night's Section 3-A match.

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Fort Cherry's Macey Roble lofts a ball over the outstretched arms of a pair of Bishop Canevin players in a Section 3-A match Thursday night.

McDONALD – Do not think for a second the Fort Cherry and Bishop Canevin girls volleyball teams just stumble across one another for their section matchups.

The two Section 3-A matches are circled for quite some time.

“Both teams look forward to it,” said Canevin coach Kevin Walters. “When they come to our gym it won’t be much different. It’s always been a good match ever since we came together in the same section.”

But as the third game started Thursday night, a member from the raucous Rangers student section shouted what everybody might have been thinking.

“Stop the bleeding,” he screamed.

Ignoring a loud gymnasium and a hungry Fort Cherry team seeking revenge, Canevin clamped down early and often, dominated the play at the net and flexed its Class A defending champion muscles in a straight set sweep over the Rangers, 25-20, 25-10 and 25-16.

“Today, Canevin got us,” said first-year Fort Cherry coach Mackenzie Biggs. “Their hitters and blockers did a great job. They knew where we were going.”

Canevin (5-0 in section) swept regular-season matches in dominating fashion last year against Fort Cherry. The Rangers took a WPIAL semifinal against the Crusaders to five games before falling to the eventual district champs.

It didn’t take long for Canevin to ride that momentum in the rivals’ first showdown in 2019. After taking Game 1, 25-20, Canevin used height from its net protectors – Kyla Hortoyo, Alexa Malloy and Gillian Galupski – to build double-digit leads quickly in the subsequent games before the Rangers (4-1 in section) could blink. Canevin jumped out to a 10-1 lead to begin the second game and a 6-1 advantage to start the third game.

“It was like the snap of a finger and we were down,” Biggs said. “I gave them direction and they followed it immediately, but it maybe was a little too late.”

“You take teams out of exactly what they want to do,” Walters said, happy with his team getting those quick leads. “Now, they are eight, nine or 10 points behind and that’s hard, no matter how good your team is.”

Fort Cherry never threatened in the second game, cutting the deficit to six before Galupski had two of her four aces in back-to-back fashion to extend the lead into double digits again.

Galupski also had a team-high 15 digs.

The Rangers trimmed their deficit in the third game to a single point, 6-5, before Malloy and Hortoyo dominated with well-placed spikes that led to Canevin winning 12 of the next 15 points for an 18-8 lead.

Malloy and Hortoyo combined for 27 kills.

“A lot of teams try a lot of out-of-system stuff, whether it be tipping the ball or sending a free ball over the net,” Walters explained. “I would rather see our players knock the bricks off the back wall (with hard spikes) than just give it back to an opponent. It’s a lot harder to dig a hard-hit ball.”

Fort Cherry’s Allie McKean was able to find some space around the dominating front line of Canevin for nine kills. She also had four blocks. Reagan Carter added six kills for the Rangers.

“Whether it was there blockers always on our hitters or their hitters just playing great, we now know what to expect,” Biggs said. “We have to get better at blocking. We have the height and speed but just have to execute.”

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