Upper Dublin holds off Pennridge in battle of SOL American unbeatens
EAST ROCKHILL >> Upper Dublin and rival Pennridge provided a playoff atmosphere in early April.
Two of the area’s best went back and forth Thursday night in four entertaining sets, with the Cardinals coming together for a 3-1 victory in a rematch of last year’s District 1-3A Final.
“It feels great. In all my years going against them, we were 3-3, and now we’re 4-3,” said senior David Levin. “It’s just great to win. Everybody’s energy was awesome.”
The Cardinals jumped out to a 2-0 lead, then saw the Rams battle back for a victory in the third set. Upper Dublin led most of the way in the fourth set, saw Pennridge rally again to go up 20-19, but then the Cardinals battled back to close it out in four (25-22, 25-19, 19-25, 25-23).
Said Levin: “We’ve been in that scenario before and we’ve let them drop. We learned from our mistakes and it feels great to get a win there.”
In a battle of Suburban One League American Division unbeatens, Upper Dublin (5-0) took a one-game lead over the Rams (4-1).
Many heroes emerged for the Cardinals.
Levin amassed 25 assists, had 16 digs and added three aces. Terrell Turner had six kills and two aces. Landon Kullmann had five kills and 13 digs.
And Ben Dorsey racked up 20 kills.
“Ben was on fire so we kept feeding him,” said Cardinals coach Paul Choi. “You’re going against Pennridge, which is always a great program and Dave (Childs) is such a good coach. He does such a good job with them. After that third set, they got a little bit of momentum, but we just told our boys to stay the course.
“We’ve been in these situations before where we’re up, and you just try to learn from those experiences that we’ve had in the past.”
Upper Dublin took the first regular-season battle between the two last year, 3-2, and then Pennridge took the second match-up, 3-2. The Rams then rolled to a 3-0 win in the district final.
On Thursday night, the Cardinals seized early control.
“I just think we came out on fire. We might have caught Pennridge by surprise a little bit,” Choi said. “It’s a big win but it’s still early. We still have a lot of work to do. We still have a couple things we gotta figure out. It’s a good step in the right direction.”
Riley Kodidek (32 assists, 10 digs, four kills, four blocks), Tyler Johnson (10 kills, four blocks), Thomas McKinney (10 kills, 14 digs), Jude Rotondo (11 kills, 8 digs), Nick Smith (six kills, three blocks) and Alex Derk (15 digs) helped spur the comeback for the Rams.
“You gotta give Upper Dublin credit. They came out ready to play,” Childs said. “They kind of controlled the whole match. They were very aggressive and controlled the pace of the match the whole way.”
