Missing PIAA final stings, but Pennridge put together another strong season

SPRING >> Just getting close was not a consolation for Pennridge boys volleyball coach Dave Childs Tuesday night.

The Rams were a set away from reaching the PIAA Class AAA final, but could not hold onto the tight semifinal contest with Hempfield at as District 3’s Black Knights rallied for a 20-25, 25-23, 20-25, 25-22, 15-9 victory at Wilson-West Lawn.

“We’re not just happy to be here. We’re not just happy to be here. No, we want to win. I mean, this is extremely disappointing,” Childs said. “Played them twice, go five with them twice, lose both times. We’re right there, we know we’re right there. We want to finish and win.”

There were a number of openings for the Rams to take charge of the semifinal and grab a spot in State College for the first time since 2012.

After taking the first set, Pennridge rallied to take a late one-point lead in Game 2, but tied 23-23 Hempfield earned the last two points to even the match.

Up 2-1 after a five-point victory in Game 3, the Rams battled back in the fourth set after a 9-2 run put Hempfield up 16-11 and pulling level four times — the last at 21-21 — yet Pennridge could not take the lead. Two straight points by the Black Knights put them ahead 23-21 and Hempfield forced a deciding set with the 25-23 win.

“They got a lot digs. They wouldn’t let us put anything away,” Rams junior Ben Chinnici said. “They had triple blocks on me, they had doubles on everyone else no matter what. Played defense and then got a good swing from the outside and sometimes we couldn’t pick it up and they were just doing everything right and that gives them a lot of confidence.”

Pennridge held the lead just once in the fifth game — a Chinnici ace made it 4-3 before the Rams hit into the net the next point to tie things up. From there, Hempfield found a groove, collecting six of the next eight points to build a 10-6 advantage.

“After Game 4, that had a lot of momentum, they won that game, they pushed hard, we got a good push then they pushed back,” Chinnici said. “And then in the fifth game they got early off and they kept that lead. Just to keep that momentum in a high school game, three or four points, that’s a match right there, especially when they play so consistently.”

A Chinnici kill had the Rams within three, but two straight for Hempfield made it 12-7 with the Black Knights eventually taking the set 15-9 to reach the state final for the first time since 2007, when the program won its ninth PIAA title.

“I think this was a huge opportunity for us. Obviously how the bracket worked out we had a good chance here to get the state finals and try and get a state championship,” Chinnici said. “This was our best chance to get a state championship and I think we messed up, we lost our opportunity there. But it was tough, they earned every point, they earned that match for sure.”

There were spans Hempfield had no way to slow down Chinnici, as the junior racked up a team-high 36 kills to go along with eight digs and a pair of aces. Jess Smith handed out 54 assists and had four kills and nine digs, Josiah Friesen made eight kills three blocks and Aaron Nelson collected seven kills and two blocks. Austin Rush added 15 digs and five aces for the Rams, who ended the season 20-4.

While Tuesday night was the final match for eight Pennridge seniors — Smith, Nelson, Rush, Ryan Spangler, Sam Cullen, Jon Bedillion, Caleb Pennell, Jeremy Baum — the class leaves having returned the Rams back to the states’ AAA final four for the first time since the 2012 run. The group also aided in the Rams defending both their Suburban One League Continental Conference and District 1 titles, becoming the fist side since Pennsbury in 2008 and 2009 to win back-to-back district crowns.

“My brother (Kalin Nelson) four years ago was on the team that got to the finals and that really put us on the map,” Aaron Nelson said. “We’d already been on the map but they just got better and better and they got to the finals, like ‘Who are these people?’ It’s good to show we’re still there, it wasn’t just this one group of kids, it’s that we can still keep going and we have the players to do it.”