Powerful P-O

Lady Mounties sweep Bellefonte in county showdown

Gordon Brunskill

BELLEFONTE — The two teams had just one loss combined entering the match, yet the difference between them remains sizable.

For the CDT/Steve Manuel

Philipsburg Osceola's Taylor Harpster (9) and outside hitter Carolyn Gallagher (16) team up to block a shot by Bellefonte's Jena Matter (8) during Thursday night's match at Bellefonte Area High School. Philipsburg Osceola swept the Red Raiders, 3-0. (For the CDT/Steve Manuel)

View larger

Bellefonte, however, just might be chipping into that margin a little.

In the end, the Philipsburg- Osceola girls’ volleyball team still finished off a sweep of the Lady Red Raiders 25-19, 25-15, 25-21 Thursday night.

It shows where the teams stand with one week left in the regular season before the District 6 playoffs begin.

“I’m pleased where we’re at,” Lady Mounties coach Mick Dininno said. “We won in three, so they did what they needed, it just wasn’t as exciting as I wanted.”

Bellefonte, on the other hand, had slightly more modest goals in facing the defending district Class AA champions and the No. 3 team in the state.

“They understood what was at stake tonight,” Lady Raider coach Chad Weight said. “Goal No. 1 was just to win one set. You win one and crazy things can happen.”

“Once you play a team like that, they’re really good,” said Bellefonte middle blocker Jena Matter, who had six kills and three blocks. “Once you accomplish the little goals, then getting to a big one would be great.”

Taylor Harpster led P-O (16-0) with 11 kills and four aces, Natasha Frank added eight kills, Kelsey Gonder accumulated 14 digs and 14 assists and Megan Yonushonis picked up four blocks.

Kaity Clouser led the Lady Raiders (13-2) with a match-high 14 kills, Emily Putnam gave out 17 assists, Jerrica Harvey had 14 digs and Amber Haslet posted 10 digs and five aces.

The teams were pretty even in serving — P-O had 10 aces to Bellefonte’s nine — but the Lady Raiders had twice as many service errors because they were trying to be aggressive against such a strong team.

However, Bellefonte also faced a 32- 25 differential in kills with eight more hitting errors, and against a team like the Lady Mounties errors have to be kept at a minimum.

“It’s frustrating,” Weight said. “A lot of that was not being able to pass the ball. Not being able to pass the ball you become very one-dimensional.”

“If we make dumb errors, we get out of a close game like that,” Matter said. “We have to be perfect.”

The difficulties, or P-O’s superiority, were most evident in the first two sets. The Lady Mounties opened the match with a 7-1 lead and then held off several Bellefonte mini bursts. The second set featured a run of six straight P-O points and 11 out of 13.

“We played with that team defensively, hitting the ball, but they got us in the serve and passing game,” Weight said. “You have to be able to serve and pass the ball, which they do a really good job of and we didn’t do a really good job of.”

Despite those runs and winning in most statistical categories, Dininno had his eyes focused on a bigger picture after the match.

“We didn’t play well at the net,” Dininno said. “We didn’t pass well at the net. We didn’t give our hitters an opportunity to run the net, to work the net. Yeah, they’re big ... but I don’t think we gave them an opportunity to show their craft, either.”

The Lady Raiders, whose only losses this season have been at the hands of the Lady Mounties, put up a better fight in the third set, which featured 11 ties and six lead changes. They even held a 16-14 lead after a quick three-point run on two P-O errors sandwiched around a Clouser kill.

A service error ended the run, though, and Harpster made sure there wouldn’t be another for Bellefonte by serving up the next five points, three of which came on unreturnable serves. Julianne Gray added two more aces a few moments later as the Lady Mounties, who have already wrapped up the Mountain League Nittany Division title, close in on their second consecutive undefeated regular season.

“Thank God we served better than they did,” Dininno said. “Our hitters never got (on) track. We had only four good kills all day. We were netting the balls on every swing. The timing was bad. We messed up four serve-receive rotations and we’ve been using the same rotation all year. Everything seemed in slow motion.”

The Lady Raiders, meanwhile, got a glimpse of what they have to do when

the postseason rolls around.

“We found out we’re a better team than we thought we were,” Matter said. “We can actually hang with them.”