Experience key for Ringgold in playoff sweep of Blackhawk
McMURRAY – In the weighty moments of Tuesday’s WPIAL Class 3A preliminary round girls volleyball match, Ringgold’s experience showed through.
The Rams, which sport a roster of nine seniors, trailed in all three sets against a much more youthful Blackhawk team.
A combination of mistakes by the Cougars and key plays by the Rams made the difference.
Ringgold rallied to win each of the first two sets and secured a 3-0 sweep over Blackhawk at Peters Township’s AHN Arena.
“This is our fourth consecutive year in the playoffs, so we knew what to expect,” Ringgold coach Adam Thomas said. “We’ve been in the prelims before. We’ve been in a lot of tight matches this year and we came into the playoffs on a nice little winning streak. The girls never panicked out there. We were down five (points) at times and consistently came back.”
The Rams (12-5) advance to play No. 2 Beaver in the WPIAL first round at 7 p.m. tonight. Blackhawk finished 10-8.
Ringgold won 25-21, 25-22, 25-20 but it wasn’t without a battle.
Blackhawk, which has two seniors and dressed only 10 players, led 21-20 in the first set, but Ringgold rattled off four straight points to steal a win. Cami Tustin had a pair of kills and Reagan Czaniecki had a block in the middle of the net that secured a point.
The set ended with a service error by Blackhawk, giving Ringgold a 25-22 win. It was the seventh service error by the Cougars in the set.
Ringgold jumped out to an early lead in the first set, but Blackhawk used a 4-0 run to tie it at 8-8. The Rams secured five of the next six points, one on a kill by Bella Massey and another on a service ace by Ally Bagnell. That forced a Blackhawk timeout.
The Cougars righted themselves after the timeout and matched Ringgold point for point until a 4-0 run highlighted by an ace by Savanna Crepp gave them their first lead at 19-18, but it wasn’t enough to deter the Rams.
In the second set, Blackhawk responded by taking control early. Kills from Kaelyn Hatzel, Lila Jones and Ema Holden helped the Cougars take a 7-3 lead and they continued to build from there.
They led 19-15, but Ringgold went on a 6-0 run to take control. A McKenna Adams and a block by Addison Mundorff were key during the run.
Ringgold led the rest of the way and the final four points came on errors by Blackhawk, including another service error for set point.
“You could tell our girls never lost their momentum out there,” Thomas said. “They did a good job of trusting the process, trusting each other and made plays, sometimes out of nothing. They stuck together, which was great.”
Ringgold trailed again early in the third set, but took the lead at 17-16 on a block by Mundorff.
Mundorff and Ava Smith shared another block that increased the lead to 19-17. Adams had a kill and an ace and Tustin added a kill and it was suddenly 22-17. Tustin finished off the match with a pair of kills.
It was Ringgold’s first playoff win in two years and now they’ll try to keep their season going tonight by pulling an upset against Beaver, a finalist in 3A last year.
“It definitely feels good to win a playoff game,” Adams said. “Hopefully we show our more competitive side at Beaver. I think we can beat them if we have the right mindset going into it.”