HAVERFORD — Pennridge gave senior star Sydney Jones and the Haverford volleyball team all they could handle Thursday in a District 1 Class 4A second-round match.
With her dominant performance in the fifth set, Jones made sure that the Fords would not be one-and-done in the postseason.
The third-seeded Fords survived a scare from Pennridge, the No. 14 seed in the tournament, winning in five grueling sets (16-25, 25-21, 25-15, 21-25, 15-9) and punching their ticket to the quarterfinal round.
The Fords, who got off to such a slow start that head coach Alin Bilc was forced to call two timeouts in the first set, displayed their resilience and determination. Leading the charge in the turnaround was Jones, the Temple-bound outside hitter.
“I think at first we had a tough time adjusting to their serves,” Jones said. “We were not used to how deep and floaty their serves were, so we had to get used to it and really rotate more and just try different things to fix it. And that’s what we did. We ended up finally getting some good passes up and we started to play a lot better.”
Bilc attributed the sluggish first set in which the Fords (19-2) dropped 12 of the first 13 points to an emotional loss at Lower Merion in their regular season finale. Haverford had a chance to win the Central League title outright from Lower Merion but fell in four sets. Because the Fords had a first-round bye, they had to wait 10 days to play their first district tournament match.
“Losing to Lower Merion, in our biggest game, had a little bit of an effect on us,” Bilc said. “You noticed it … our pass and serve were not quite there, so that told me we were still lingering in that mental state losing to Lower Merion. It was a tough match and we really didn’t play as well as we would have liked, but I think towards the end (Thursday) we started to build momentum and got much better with our serving and passing. Early we were jumping too early on the block and I think we fixed that. It was a lot of hard work.”
Jones helped set the tone in the second set as the Fords jumped out to leads of 8-2 and 12-6. They controlled the tempo as senior middle hitter Keira Hornung started to come up clutch in front of the net alongside senior opposite hitter Ashley Wright and junior middle hitter Abigail Crowley.
“I think because of our ranking we walked in a little too confident, like, ‘Oh, we’ve got this.’ But we realized that we do need to put a lot of work in,” Hornung said. “I think one of our greatest skills as a team is to be able to come back from such a deficit. We’ve done that so many times, even in previous years. Even if we don’t win the game, we will bring it back to a close game every time, somehow. For me I try to stay positive at all times even when other girls are getting a little stressed out. We were repeating mistakes tonight and it was really testing our ability to remember that this is a volleyball game and that we can do this and we will do this, as long as we stayed positive.”
Hornung had high praise for the way Jones dominated late in the match. After the Fords lost a seesaw battle in the fourth set, Jones put the team on her back in the fifth and deciding set. She was responsible for nine of the Fords’ 15 points, unleashing several hard shots and hitting her spot on Pennridge’s side of the floor every time. Sophomore libero Maja Bogdanowicz delivered the kill to put Haverford ahead for good at 9-8.
“You’ve seen Sydney, she is crazy good,” Hornung said. “She’s been committed to Temple for a while and there’s a reason for that. She was amazing. Once she took over we were all getting back into the game. Our setters and our passers, everyone got their heads in the game. During the game she turned and said to me, ‘I’ll find a way to get us a point.’ And it’s so true with her. She always finds a way.”
Haverford will meet No. 11 Upper Merion (19-3), which upset sixth-seeded Garnet Valley (16-4) in four sets, in the quarterfinals Saturday.
In another District 1 Class 4A second-round match:
Pennsbury 3, Strath Haven 1 >> The 12th-seeded Panthers (15-5) were eliminated by the No. 5 Falcons (16-3) by scores of 25-19, 20-25, 22-25 and 19-25.
Jillian Surkis produced 15 kills and Lauren McGinn had eight. Sophia Andrews-Sullivan and Eliza Jauregui (six blocks) each added four kills. Aislin O’Neill and Madelyn Kane excelled defensively with 18 and 14 digs, respectively. Oyindamola Songonuga recorded 13 assists.
