WESTTOWN — In front of a large raucous crowd, a team can either rise to the occasion or shrink from it.
In Thursday’s Ches-Mont League girls volleyball contest, West Chester Rustin used the extra motivation to get off to a quick start and go on to upend Downingtown East 3-1 in front of a mostly pink-cladded crowd in support of Breast Cancer awareness.
Rustin coach Casey Pyszczymuka stated how she had to remind her team not to get too keyed with the support.
“That was a talking point I had in the pre-game speech,” she said. “There’s photographers, there’s all these people watching us and it is a big stage for them. It gets a little nerve wracking, but I mentioned that we just needed to focus on what we could control and used that excitement on being disciplined and they were able to do that.”
Both teams came into the matchup fourth in the District 1 rankings, The Cougars in 4A and the Golden Knights in 3A. Rustin won its fifth straight and improved to 8-4 and 5-2 in the American. East saw its six-match winning streak snapped as it falls to 9-2 overall and 5-2 in the Ches-Mont National.
“I think we fought really hard and played great,” said senior outside hitter Ava Theiller. “I love it. I like to thank all of the people here. I think it’s great.”
The first set started evenly, with the game tied at 4-4. Then Rustin scored six of the next 10 points to earn a 10-8 advantage. Avery Stromberg knocked down a kill to make it 18-11 and force the Cougars into a timeout. The Golden Knights kept the lead going until a spike from sophomore Faith Hendricks brought them to set point at 24-17.A service error gave East a point, but a spike attempt went long to give Rustin a leg up with a 25-18 victory.
“Our starting setter sprained her ankle last week and we have a newer setter and we were a little out of sync,” said East coach Caitlin Dankanich. “Rustin runs a quicker offense and it was an adjustment. We played a pretty tight match last night (Wednesday) against Haverford (won by the Cougars in five sets), so players might have been a little tired, but they came back and gave a better effort in the third and fourth sets than they did in the first two sets.”
The Golden Knights jumped out to an 8-1 lead at the beginning of the second set and kept building on it until it reached 18-5 as East took another time out. They had set point when off a scramble at the net, until Lilly Greenwood put away a first-time spike to give them a surprising 2-0 lead with a 25-9 win.
“I expected the entire match to be like set three,” said Pyszczymuka. “I was nervous all day. I knew that Downingtown East had it in them, so I was a little shocked that it was an easy roll, but it was nice to do that well against them. But on the other hand, those two sets, we were patient and we were disciplined and that’s what we’ve been trying to work on.”
East found its footing as it opened the third set by winning the first four points. There were three ties in the frame, the last coming at 19-19. East won a long rally to lead, 20-19 and later closed it out as Marisa Guan’s spike eluded a diving Rustin defender and East recorded a 25-19 win to reduce the match deficit to 2-1.
“They played better defensively that set,” said Dankanich. “We passed better, we hit better. Everything started coming together in that set.”
East’s run was something that Pyszczymuka expected and she made sure her team wouldn’t lose their composure.
“We had to calm them down because there was a lot of emotion and with that emotion, you can either go one way or another,” she said.
The fourth set stayed close until Stromberg’s service saw a 7-7 game go to 11-7 in favor of Rustin. Their biggest lead of the fourth was at 17-10 before East tried to chip away. They did get it to 20-17 before Rustin found themselves at match point. East won two straight points to give its followers some hope, but the end came when Theiller, who had a thunderous spike earlier in the set, powered a spike through the block for the set and the match at 25-21.
“Our frontline was being available and open and it was causing Ava to be successful because we were able to get balls to her,but she did a fantastic job just not letting up,” added Pyszczymuka.
Both teams are back at it on Monday, East faces Sun Valley, while Rustin takes on another top National Division team in Bishop Shanahan.
Source: Berkshire mont
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