Christopher Dock finds toughness, tops Neshaminy in District 1 1st round

TOWAMENCIN >> Noah Shreiner rose up, up and up then hammered down the last kill of the night.

Shreiner had been bottled up for portions of the match, but he made the most of this chance. His final kill capped off a mentally tough showing by Christopher Dock’s boys’ volleyball team as it beat visiting tNeshaminy 3-1 (25-22, 17-25, 25-23, 25-19) in the first round of the District 1-AAA tournament Tuesday night.

Dock had lost in five games to Neshaminy in the regular season.

“I would say if anything it just fired us up,” Dock hitter Ty Rice said. “You lose a game the first time, you want to come back real hard and beat them the second time. We both came out and played hard, we hit a lot of in balls and did it.”

Neshaminy’s advantage in height and length, coupled with some postseason nerves on the Dock side, put the visitors out to a 6-2 lead early in the game. Dock stayed behind but cut it to 19-16 and got a huge point when Jesse Kolb put down a kill.

Neshaminy followed that with three straight unforced errors to tie the game 20-20 before the Pioneers got another kill to take the lead. A kill by Noah Shreiner put Dock up 23-20 where it held on to take a 25-22 win and 1-0 lead in the match.

Rice also had a key late kill to stop two straight from Neshaminy while putting the Pioneers up 24-22.
But Dock couldn’t keep the roll going in the second game, a series of unforced errors extending Neshaminy’s lead from 9-8 to 13-8.

“We have worked a ton on serve receive and the transition out of defense to offense,” Dock coach Trish Hoover said. “Serve receive did struggle early on tonight and that’s always the difference maker for us. If we can pass that serve well we have a pretty good offense and a lot of different weapons we can use.”

After cutting it to 15-14, the Pioneers gave up six straight points to fall behind 21-14 and Neshaminy put away four of the next seven points to even the match.

Neshaminy continued its strong run opening up the third game, taking a 7-1 lead and leaving Dock looking deflated.

“Our mentality is what came out of that,” Hoover said. “Between the second and third game I said we are not playing with passion and with energy and we are allowing another team to come in to our gym and set the tempo and that’s not what Dock volleyball has been about all season.”

Dock clawed its way back in, knotting the game at 17-17 with the teams trading points until two Neshaminy errors put the hosts up 23-21. An errant serve was the final point, setting up the close-out fourth game.

In that game, a kill by Jordan Addley kicked off a 6-0 Dock run that gave the Pioneers a 12-8 lead they wouldn’t relinquish the rest of the way. Rice, who had 15 kills and Shreiner, who put down nine, came up clutch in a number of big spots as Dock used a 4-0 run to extend the lead to 16-9 and kept the pressure up getting to match point at 24-16. Neshaminy did get three in a row, but Dock put an end to any comeback bid when Shreiner put down the final kill.

The Pioneers will go on to face top-seeded Council Rock North on the road Thursday night.