West Allegheny Beats Hampton to Win WPIAL 3-A Volleyball Title

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, November 5, 2016 | 9:44 PM

The West Allegheny Indians continue their perfect season as they beat Hampton in 4 sets to win the Class 3A WPIAL Championship on Saturday. West A came into the match with a perfect record and although they dropped the first set, they were able to regroup and win the next three in impressive fashion.

The Hampton Talbots battled extremely hard all night and gave the Indians a wholesale challenge. Set one went to Hampton 25-23. Anastasia Russ dominated in the middle. West Allegheny had a tough time generating any offense around her and had to keep going to the outside.  Russ had 18 kills on the night and her presence was felt early. There were a lot of unforced errors in the first set by both teams. It seemed as if both were trying to adjust to tightly packed gym at Baldwin High School. Ultimately, Hampton prevailed in the first set with good teamwork and solid play by their leaders Russ and Kira Diehm.  West Allegheny hadn’t been in this spot nearly at all during the regular season, down after the first set, but it did not affect their confidence and overall play as they found a way to respond. That response was to win the next three sets.

West Allegheny rallied behind strong play from Allison Koester and Morgan Ziolkowski. They had 20 and 17 kills respectively when the night ended. The two senior stars stepped up every time the team needed them too. The final three sets were all close and all in back and forth action. Hampton battled in every set forcing the Indians to limit their mistakes. Again, they forced West A to pass and attack from the outside as Russ and Kali Kobert gave Hampton an edge up the middle by using their height to their advantage. When Koestner and Ziokowski had their breaks, it was strong serving by the freshman Kortney White that helped the Indians’ run. She had four aces to lead all players and shows promise as a future star for West Allegheny’s already booming program.

The scores for the final three sets read 25-19, 25-21, and 25-16 all in favor of West Allegheny. Head Coach Yoko Nagao spoke briefly after the game saying that teamwork was the reason for the comeback. That couldn’t be truer. West A never seemed down after dropping that first set. In fact, they just got better and better as the night went on. 5 different players had attacking kills, 4 had blocks, and 3 had service aces. Yes, teamwork was the main reason the Indians were able to get it done.

Hampton loses just it’s second match all season and walks away very deserving of the silver metals they received. Their season will also continue on to the PIAA state playoffs.

The gold goes to West Allegheny, who is still unbeaten, and they will represent Class 3A as the number one seed from the WPIAL in the state playoffs.

Key Stats:

Hampton –

#8 Kobert – 11 kills, 2 blocks

#11 Diehm – 7 kills, 3 aces

#27 Russ – 18 kills, 10 blocks, 3 aces

West Allegheny –

#8 Koester – 20 kills, 1 block

#12 Martelli – 4 kills, 5 blocks

#18 Koester – 10 kills, 6 blocks

#19 Ziolkowski – 17 kills, 1 block

Tags: Hampton, West Allegheny