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READING — No gold for the Barons.
But a shot at bronze, and a trip to the PIAA playoffs, is still on the table for Manheim Central’s boys volleyball team, which suffered its first loss Tuesday night.
And it was a stinger.
The Barons breezed to a 2-0 lead in a District 3 Class 2A semifinal showdown at Exeter. But the host Eagles put on their rally caps, won the next two sets to force a winner-takes-all fifth, and Exeter capped off its comeback with a riveting win there to stun Central 3-2.
Game scores were 23-25, 19-25, 25-20, 25-22, 15-12, as Exeter, the No. 2 seed and the Berks League champ, punched its ticket to Thursday’s title match at top-seeded Lower Dauphin, which blanked No. 4 York Suburban 3-0. The Falcons will be angling for their third district title in a row, and LD won the state 2A crown last spring.
Central, the L-L League champ and No. 3 seed, will host York Suburban on Thursday for third place. The winner there goes to the state tournament. The loser is out. The Barons, who were denied a shot at their second district title, finished third in this bracket last spring, and will shooting for a return trip to states.
As for Tuesday’s sucker-punch setback …
“This one hurts,” Central coach Craig Dietrich said. “I said to our guys after two that we didn’t want to give them even one, because it would give them life. And they got life. We couldn’t go five here. Not in this atmosphere. It was going to be like a locomotive going downhill.”
Central sizzled here early Tuesday. The Barons took their first lead in the first set at 20-19, and closed it out behind kills from Jacob Moyer, Landon Mattiace and Logan Groff. Mattiace’s block capped the first set and Central was up 1-0.
Groff, who had 23 kills, had his way above the net in the second set for the Barons, slamming seven kills as Central — which got 31 digs in the back from Colin Rohrer — never trailed. The key moment came midway through the game, when Groff, getting some nifty sets from Dylan Musser, who had 56 assists, teed off on four kills over a seven-point span, and Peter Burkhart’s kill gave the Barons a 16-10 edge, and Central was on its way to a seemingly safe 2-0 lead.
But from there on out, Exeter leaned on 6-foot-8, USA U-19 Team hitter Gaige Gabriel, who was simply unstoppable up front. He slammed 27 kills in all, including multiple must-have spikes during the Eagles’ comeback.
Gabriel had two kills in a three-point clip, giving Exeter an 18-15 lead in the third. He had two kills during the Eagles’ 5-0 blitz in the fourth, when Exeter withstood Central’s 6-0 run for an 18-12 lead. The Eagles took the lead for good on Gabriel’s block, and Exeter knotted it up at 2-2 and forced a decisive fifth game.
“We had them dead in the water in the fourth, up 18-12,” Dietrich noted. “But we let them back in it.”
Central (15-1) grabbed an early 3-1 lead in the fifth, and the Barons had an 11-10 lead on Groff’s kill. But Gabriel’s kill tied it, and Exeter took the lead for good, 12-11, when Gabriel whistled another powerful winner.
Gabriel’s kill gave Exeter match points, and Gabriel — who else — closed it out with a service winner and the Eagles pulled off the comeback and earned Thursday’s trip to Hummelstown to take on LD.
“We didn’t close them out,” Dietrich said. “I’m stunned. But I think they’re a little more stunned than I am. Kids have an invincibility factor. But we ran into another team that wanted it more than us.”
TWITTER: @JeffReinhart77
