Bishop Shanahan blanks Downingtown East in battle of Ches-Mont unbeatens
UWCHLAN >> It was, arguably, the most impactful regular season volleyball match in Ches-Mont history. Combatants with combined record of 31-0 and holding the top two spots in the District 1 4A power rankings.
“It might very well be,” agreed Bishop Shanahan head coach Greg Ashman. “I don’t remember anything like this even back in the olden days when Unionville was on top — especially this late in the season.”
But in front of a big crowd and on the road, the Eagles showed they aren’t even remotely ready to surrender local supremacy by blasting previous unbeaten Downingtown East 3-0 in a Thursday clash that was over in about an hour.
“I had a lot of fun watching this one,” Ashman said.
“Bishop Shanahan is very impressive,” added East head coach Peggy Hopton. “Tonight, they were the better team, for sure.
“When you play against a good team it’s only going to make you better. We now know that maybe we’re not as good as we thought. We have to get better.”
With, essentially, the Ches-Mont regular season crown on the line, and a top seed in the upcoming districts at stake, it was surprising how seemingly effortlessly the Eagles swept the Cougars 25-18, 25-19, 25-11.
“I wouldn’t say it was easy,” said Shanahan’s star senior Cara Shultz. “It was more about us playing very disciplined volleyball. This was definitely one of the highlights of our season.”
It wasn’t that the Eagles won for the 14th consecutive outing – it was how they won. Getting off to fast starts in each set, thanks to a bunch of service runs, and then never allowing East to grab the momentum by out-hitting and out-defending the Cougars.
“The key is starting strong,” Ashman said. “We knew coming into this environment that it was going to be loud, but we love this kind of atmosphere. We treated this as a playoff match because it was. This was to send a message to the rest of the district that, ‘hey, we’re still here.’”
Now 14-0 overall (10-0 in the league), Shanahan is now the only unbeaten team in the district, and has solidified its spot atop the power rankings with only two regular season matches to go. The Eagles are ranked second in the state in the latest poll by the Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association.
“Downingtown East is no slouch,” Ashman said. “They are ranked eighth in the state and they deserve to be.”
The Cougars fall to 10-1 (18-1 overall).
“I was proud of the way we kept battling, but Shanahan put the pressure on us and we were unable to respond,” Hopton said.
Shanahan’s motto: ‘Tradition Doesn’t Graduate’ was on clear display on Thursday. Coming off a league and district title, and a berth in the 2018 state title game, the Eagles lost a slew of seniors to graduation. But they haven’t skipped a beat a year later.
“I thought we really showed out and proved to people how Shanahan volleyball can really play. We came out on a mission,” said senior libero/DS Grace Casagrande.
“We are a very young team and I’m very happy with how we played,” Shultz added. “We came out of the gates swinging.
“We graduated a lot from last season, but we are still one of the best teams in the state. We have such a deep bench and every player is just as talented as the next.”
In the opening set, the Eagles raced out to an early 7-3 first set lead, but a service run by East’s Jordan Musantry eventually tied it. That’s when Shanahan went on a 7-1 rally to regain control, and then closed it out with late kills by Brooke Burns, Maddie Rudolph and Shultz, as well as a block and a dink from senior setter Mia Caporellie.
“Our energy stayed constant,” said Caporellie, who amassed 47 assist, 21 digs, three aces, five kills and three blocks. “It’s really fun when we all play at a high level. When everybody is on the same page, it’s like magic.”
Set number two was similar as the Eagles opened a 10-2 early lead, saw the Cougars battle back to within four at 11-7, and then staged another surge — thanks to three kills by Shultz – that put Shanahan back into command.
In the third set, it was 14-4 when Hopton called her sixth (and final) timeout. Shultz had six of her team-high 21 kills in the set, added 17 digs and wound up scoring 13 points on the evening off of her lethal jump-serve.
“One of our strengths is our service line,” Ashman explained. “We work on it a lot and a lot of teams don’t take it seriously. We work on it every single day. In our last two matches against Unionville and here tonight, we really showed it.”
Burns wound up with eight kills and five digs, Casagrande notched 25 digs and Cara’s younger sister, Coco, chipped in with six kills and 14 digs.
“I was really proud to see that they stuck with the game plan,” Ashman said. “We knew if we had ball-control and ran our middle (blockers), (East) wouldn’t know where balls were coming from. We can hit from any position on the court.
“We also have five kids on our bench that play the libero/DS position that I honestly believe could be the starters at any team in the league. I got four of the five of them in there tonight and we didn’t miss a beat.”
Senior hitter Jill Curran paced the Cougars with 10 kills and 14 digs, and Jess Angeline added 20 assists and nine digs.
“Slow starts hurt us,” Hopton said. “You have to fight hard to get the side-out and you can’t give up multiple points, and we did that. A lot of that has to do with the way Shanahan played. I don’t think they’ve played a better match than that.
“They served tough. I thought we passed really well in the first set but they hit better than we did.”
