WPIAL Class A volleyball powers Bishop Canevin, GCC meet again for title
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Thursday, November 4, 2021 | 8:19 PM
Greensburg Central Catholic’s Grace Petnuch goes up for a kill against Bishop Canevin’s Olivia Thomas during their match on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, at Bishop Canevin High School.
Greensburg Central Catholic’s Julia Kratzenberg (2) goes up for a block against Bishop Canevin’s Keira Kozlowski during their match on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, at Bishop Canevin High School.
Greensburg Central Catholic’s Grace Petnuch works against Bishop Canevin’s Olivia Thomas at the net during their match on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, at Bishop Canevin High School.
Greensburg Central Catholic’s Kayla Desak, Grace Kindel and Rebecca Hess celebrate a score against Bishop Canevin during their match on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, at Bishop Canevin High School.
Two familiar foes will be battling for the WPIAL Class A girls volleyball title Saturday.
Bishop Canevin and Greensburg Central Catholic have dominated the WPIAL’s smallest classification for the past 10 seasons, with the Crusaders winning six times, including the past four, and the Centurions winning three (2012, ‘14 and ‘16).
The starts at 1:30 p.m. at Robert Morris. Both already have qualified for the PIAA tournament, which begins next week. This is Bishop Canevin’s 10th consecutive finals appearance and the sixth meeting against GCC in the finals.
Bishop Canevin is ranked No. 1 and will be shooting for its fifth straight title. It defeated Greensburg Central Catholic in the 2020 finals. Greensburg Central Catholic is seeded No. 3.
Over the past 10 years, GCC has won two state titles and Bishop Canevin one.
Both also had slow starts in their semifinal-round matches Tuesday at Norwin.
Leechburg jumped out to an 8-1 lead in Game 1 before Bishop Canevin found its legs and won, 3-0.
It took two games for Greensburg Central Catholic to find its groove against California, rallying for a 3-2 victory by winning a thrilling Game 5, 15-13.
“I don’t know what our problem has been,” Bishop Canevin coach Angela Wyman said. “We started out slowly against Fort Cherry in the quarterfinals.
“It’s the playoffs and anything can happen. I’ve told our girls the only team that can beat us is ourselves.”
Bishop Canevin is 24-1 this season with its only loss coming against Class 2A North Catholic, 3-2, in late September.
Greensburg Central Catholic is 16-3. The Lady Centurions played the semifinals without coach Angela Komoroski, who is on her honeymoon.
Assistant coach Erin Salas said she pulled the team away from the bench for Game 3 against California and delivered a stern message.
She smiled when asked if the team got the message.
“Basically, I told them we weren’t playing our game and we needed to pick it up,” Salas said. “I told them what we needed to do and what they weren’t doing. We had to reset ourselves. Once we did, we were a totally different team.”
“They got it together, and they played excellent. They played their hearts out the final three games. I felt our seniors picked it up. We did it as a team.”
Senior outside hitter Rebecca Hess said communication was poor, and the team was playing scared.
“Weren’t playing like we normally do,” Hess said. “We were slow and skittish. After that we started to relax. We usually don’t play scared. It was the semifinals. If we lose this, we’re done. But we responded.”
Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.
Tags: Greensburg C.C.
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