September 14, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Mount volleyball bows to Bears
by TOM UTESCHER

In the Athletic Association of Catholic Academies, volleyball matches involving Mount St. Joseph Academy, Merion Mercy and Villa Maria always have a bearing on the top spots in the league rankings, and the first two of these teams had their initial encounter last Thursday at the Mount.

Earlier in the week, the Magic had officially opened their season with a 3-0 victory against another AACA rival, Gwynedd Mercy, but on Thursday it was host MSJ which lost by the same score to the Golden Bears of Merion. All the games were close (25-18, 25-23, 25-19) but at crunch time, Merion just seemed to have a few more tricks in the bag than the Magic.

“Give Merion credit, because they played very well,” said Mount mentor Sandy Butcher. “We did a lot of good things, but Merion did them a little bit better. We hung in with them, and I think the difference was that we’d never seen all those tips from Merion before. Basically, they tipped us off the court.”

Although Merion scored a modest total of eight points directly on tips, the Bears’ saavy blending of dinks and jackhammer hits kept the Magic off-balance throughout the match.

Danielle Carozza, Merion’s premier outside hitter, opened the scoring for the day with the first of her 19 kills in the match, as the Bears rolled out to a 6-1 lead in the first game and later went up 12-4. A kill by Katie Kirsch started the Magic on the road to recovery. Additional scoring hits by Kirsch and Katie Tenzinger followed, and Sarah McGorry put up points on a kill and a block.

Later, on a very high service return by MSJ’s Michelle Skowronek, the ball threaded its way through a latticework of overhead rafters and eventually dropped onto the Bears’ court. An error by Merion gave the Magic the next point, as well, and they were now back within three, at 14-17. The Mount’s hopes of overtaking its guest diminished as the score rose to 22-18, then Merion finished out the game with three straight points on two errant hits by the Magic and a tip by its own Erin McInnes.

Two points by McInnes helped get the visitors out to a 3-0 lead in game two, but this time Mount St. Joe recovered more quickly. The Magic were back within one at 6-7, but Merion managed to stay just a step or two ahead. Later, the spread widened to 20-15, but over the next few minutes a series of errors by the Bears, combined with kills by the Mount’s McGorry and Chrissy Fesnak, leveled the score at 21-all.

A net violation called on the Mount and a kill by Helen Fitzpatrick of Merion put the visitors up by two, then the Magic climbed back within a point of the leaders at 23-22 and at 24-23 before Carozza whacked game point for the Bears.

“In general our passing, with Erin Connelly and Marissa Every, was great,” Butcher would say later. “Our hitters didn’t get all the hits that I would like them to get because most of the time Merion had us somewhat out-of-system.”

Early in the third game Mount St. Joe led on several occasions, the last time at 7-6, then the Bears put up four straight points to secure a lead that they would hold the rest of the way. Scoring by Fesnak and Kirsch kept the hosts within striking distance, trailing only 17-15 in the middle of the game.

After the score seesawed to 19-17, the Bears strengthened their position with three straight points on a tip by McInnes, a hit by Carozza, and an MSJ error. The Magic were unable to mount a serious threat after that, and match point came, appropriately, on a belt by Carozza. During the encounter, the Mount’s Kirsch and Merion’s McInnes each chalked up a dozen kills.