Parkland High School senior setter Will Stiles said he's been tinkering with his serve lately.
“I've been trying to change my serve,” said Stiles, a freshman at Misericordia University. “Instead of going up and down, you’re trying to go deeper.”
Whatever Styles is doing, it's certainly working. The left-hander scored an incredible 14 straight points early in Game 1, leading Parkland to a 25-9 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship game Wednesday night at Allen's Swords. , setting the stage for a 25-18, 25-15 victory over Whitehall. Gym.
With the win, the Trojans avenged their only loss in the EPC (a five-set loss to the Zephyrs on April 9) and clinched their third straight conference title.
“In my 18 years of coaching, I don't remember anyone ever doing that,” Whitehall coach George Kowich said of Stiles' service run. “What can I say? Just tell the kids to keep playing.”
After senior middle hitter Luke Smith led the scoring, Stiles trotted back to the service line and got to work, supplementing the hard hitting of Smith, opposite senior Owen Rogers, and junior outside hitter Josh Nation. Collected 4 aces for this purpose.
Kowich called two timeouts during the 15-0 opener. In the second, top-seeded Parkland, who had been perfect in that regard, finally stopped the bleeding by hitting a ball wide of the frame.
“I've never done that before, probably at the club level,” Styles said of his incredible serving streak. “We've played against them before, watched a fair amount of film and knew their weaknesses. Tonight we played with a lot of energy and heart. They're rivals and we played with a lot of heart. , we didn't want to lose to them.”
Parkland veteran coach Scott Trumbauer was impressed with his team's start against the third-seeded Zephyrs.
“There were fewer mistakes (in service),” Trumbauer said. “Throughout the season, we'd end up with a service error after five or six service runs. Tonight, we kept the ball in play. I told them before the game that it was the first time we faced them. At the time, I told them that we were statistically better in every category except for ace.
So the message was simple. It’s about putting the ball in play, keeping it in play, and beating the Whitehall defense. In Game 1, Rodgers, Nation, Smith and senior outside hitter Alex Wilby combined for 14 kills, and Smith had two blocks.
“To be honest, a lot of it was revenge against them,” Rogers said. “The first game didn't go our way. Our blocking was better tonight. Obviously, we knew Jack (Kocher) was a good hitter for them. We took away their strengths. We made plays and did our job.”
Game 2 was more indicative of how competitive the match was expected to be. Parkland's serve accuracy went dormant as Whitehall's first three points came from errant Trojan serves.
A kill from junior middle hitter Peter Tabarani gave Whitehall a 16-15 lead, and the defending PIAA Class 3A state champions stormed out to a 6-0 lead with three kills from Nation and two combo blocks from Smith and Rodgers. Additional blocks by seniors Brady Heyward and Rodgers capped off a 25-18 victory.
Not surprisingly, Styles was serving while running.
“I couldn’t break out of the rotation there,” Kowich said.
“We did a great job defensively,” said Nation, who collected eight kills in Game 2. “We often got great sets when we were expecting kills.”
Parkland conceded the first points in Game 3, but kills from Nation and Rodgers gave the Trojans the lead for good. Nation's emphatic kill properly disposed of match point in a 25-15 victory.
“The best thing about our team is that on any given night we have someone different filling in for us,” Rodgers said.
Parkland is the top seed in the seven-team District 11 Class 3A tournament that begins next week and will advance to the semifinals with a bye. Whitehall is expected to be the No. 3 seed.
“What's really weird is that we played scared tonight, but that shouldn't happen because we're in all the big tournaments in the state and we're playing against the best teams around. No,” Kowich said. “We'll go back to district training and make adjustments. Hopefully we'll have a chance to play against them (Parkland) again, but it's not easy to get to this point.”
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