Jun 10, 2023 3 min read

McMURRAY – Someday, the high school volleyball team at Canon-McMillan High School will handle Shaler.

But Saturday wasn’t going to be that day.

Canon-McMillan won the first two games and seemed in perfect position to gain a measure of revenge against the Titans, who swept the Big Macs in the WPIAL semifinals last week.

But Shaler managed to do something it hadn’t done all season: Win three straight games over the Big Macs in the PIAA Class 3A quarterfinals Saturday at Peters Township High School’s AHN Arena.

The loss was a bitter one to swallow for Canon-McMillan, which was in the driver’s seat after taking the first game, 27-25, and the second, 25-18, by playing some of its best volleyball all season.

But Shaler won the third game, 25-16, then took the fourth game, 25-14. The Titans held Canon-McMillan to just three points after taking a 17-13 lead in the third game and just one point after forging a 16-13 lead. The fifth and deciding game was much like the previous two, with Shaler carving out an 11-3 lead and stifling Canon-McMillan the rest of the way.

The win sends Shaler to the state semifinals while Canon-McMillan finishes an otherwise illustrious season with a 19-2 record.

This was the first time in the program’s history that Canon-McMillan made the state playoffs and first time the Big Macs won a game in its tournament.

“I think we slowed down a little bit (over the final three games),” said Canon-McMillan head coach Sheila Mitchell. “In the middle of the third game, we just started making a lot of unforced errors. That got us out of our rhythm. We were in a pretty good rhythm until then.”

And just like their match in the WPIAL semifinals, Shaler successfully attacked the middle of Canon-McMillan’s defense with a high degree of success.

“We had to keep them out of the middle and we didn’t do that with a high degree of success,” Mitchell said. “The first two games, we were able to get them out of their game, their system. I always talk about momentum and they had it in the final three sets.”

Canon-McMillan held Shaler’s best player, 6-3 senior Logan Peterson, in check. The only team category he led was digs with 25.

“I told our players to calm down after the first two sets,” said Shaler head coach Paul Stadelman. “You can’t win all three right now. We have to win the next point, the next set. We needed to execute and I think they did that. They really worked to come back and gain some momentum.”

Owen Ostrowski, Canon-McMillan’s 6-4 senior hitter, had a tremendous effort with 29 kills, 14 digs and two aces. Some of Shaler’s players should have received combat pay for getting in the way of one of Ostrowski’s returns.

Ostrowski will attend West Virginia University in the fall but the Mountaineers do not have an NCAA sanctioned volleyball program. He does plan on playing rec league.

“My season is over,” said Ostrowski. “It started in March, and before that with preseason stuff. I’m much happier how we played them this time. We got swept the last time. We played our best but they are a very good team.”

For Canon-McMillan, Justin Peters had 40 assists and 12 digs. Luke Bockius had an exceptionally strong game with 19 digs.