End of the road for O’Hara, Sacred Heart at states

Cardinal O’Hara volleyball coach Bill Collins knew the Lions faced an uphill battle against defending champ Parkland in the quarterfinal round of the PIAA Class AAA playoffs.

Sacred Heart coach Michelle Gatta felt the same way about her team’s rematch with Marian Catholic in the Class A quarterfinals.

Both coaches were right.

Parkland extended its winning streak to 53 matches with a 3-0 victory over O’Hara in the second game of a doubleheader Saturday afternoon at Governor Mifflin Intermediate School. The Trojans (27-0) rolled, 25-13, 25-8, 25-11.

In the opener, Sacred Heart dropped a 3-0 decision to Marian Catholic. The Fillies (18-2) came out on top, 25-22, 25-13, 25-17.

“They’re good,” Collins said of Parkland. “They hit on every block, serve bullets and dig everything out. They’re bigger than us and jumped higher. It will be very interesting to see if anyone can beat them. If someone does beat them, wow. I’d like to see that team.”

The Trojans have lost just three sets all year and quickly took control. Parkland never let up.

“We would stay with them for the first six, seven or eight points and all of the sudden we would be down, 14-5,” Collins said. “That’s how good they are.”

O’Hara, though, did not give up, Collins said.

“We’re down, 2-0, and trailing 23-8, in the third set and my girls are still diving for the ball,” Collins said. “That showed me they cared.”

Charlee Borcky led O’Hara with four kills. Meghan MacWilliams had six assists and Erin Daly had three aces and two kills.

“It was a great run and that’s what I told them,” Collins said. “If you had told me when we were 4-3 that we would get to the state quarterfinals, I would not have believed it. And we only lose one player off this team. That’s a big loss (Gabby Napoleon), but we have a lot of experience coming back and this will help them.”

Sacred Heart’s hopes of advancing took a major hit in the second set, Gatta said. Sacred Heart could not stop the service game of Marian Catholic’s Jasmine Mooney.

“We’ve come back before from two down,” Gatta said. “We just weren’t able to do it today.”

Julianna Michniak led Sacred Heart with 10 kills and five blocks. Ally Schell added 23 digs, 7 kills and one block.

“We accomplished a lot this season,” Gatta said. “We beat Merion Mercy. We beat St. Basil and we beat (Christopher) Dock twice. It’s just a shame it had to come to an end.”