La Salle slowly reaches PCL final with win over St. Joseph’s Prep

SPRINGFIELD >> If slow starts were apple tarts La Salle’s volleyball team would be chubby bakers.

Bad lead-in aside, the Explorers have gotten out of the box a little tardy all season long, so that when they trailed St. Joseph’s Prep by six points in the opening game of Saturday afternoon’s Philadelphia Catholic League semifinal, it could be said the hosts had their guests right where they wanted them.

Three sets later, when the Explorers were celebrating a 25-22, 25-17, 25-12 victory and a berth in the PCL final (Monday evening at Cairn University) against Lansdale Catholic, their reputation was intact.

But more importantly, they were in the finals, where they and the Crusaders will play a rubber match for all the PCL marbles.

“We started a little slow, which we seem to do a lot,” said Explorers interim head coach Jason Eisele, “but we finished strong.

“It got a little scary when we got down seven or eight in that first set, but we popped back.”
The Explorers popped back behind a concerted effort led by the likes of Patrick Guinosso and Jake Glah, although all of the Explorers had a hand in the victory.

“We tend to start out slowly,” Guinosso said. “Usually it takes a good play or two to get us going.

“We go in tentative, but once we’re sure of ourselves we really get moving.”

The Explorers were chasing a 13-7 deficit in the opening set, but began to roar back, pulling to within 13-11 and then 15-14 before knotting the set at 22.

From there, the Explorers got an ace from Alex Hughes, a Glah kill and when they got a Prep mishit at match point they were one-up.

At that point the Explorers rolled, taking leads of 7-3, 10-5 and 18-13 in the second set before prevailing, 25-17.

La Salle fell behind, 6-3, in the third set, but quickly tied it at 6, then pulled away starting with behind back-to-back kills by Chris Kugler and Guinosso that opened a 9-7 lead.

An ace by Owen Moran and another kill by Guinosso opened the lead to 12-7, and it was all over but the spiking.
By the time the lead reached 17-9, it was obvious the Explorers were going to move on.

To be sure, the Explorers, up 17-10, took eight of the final 10 points to pull into victory lane, and pronounced themselves ready for Monday night’s rubber match.

“We struggled to recover and lost to CB South this year,” Guinosso said, “and we were swept early in the year by LC. But it seems once we string together a few good hits we kind of feed off each other.”

“It’s just the way we come out,” Glah added. “Once we get rolling, we’re nearly impossible to stop.”

Count Prep head coach Scott Murphy among the impressed, although it was the Hawks head coach who drew raves from Eisele.

“This is only Prep’s third season of volleyball, and (Murphy) has them getting this far in the playoffs. He’s done wonders with that program in that short time.”

“Our guys have worked really hard,” Murphy said. “If you include our libero, we have seven starters who are underclassmen.

“The biggest challenge for us is getting guys out for the team. But the core group here has been working so hard, and that’s really been fun to see.”

VOLLEYS: In the two matches this year between the finals combatants, Lansdale Catholic was an easy three-set winner in the first match, but La Salle rallied to win the second meeting in five sets.