Central York and Northeastern painted Penn State’s Rec Hall orange and black on Saturday.
The District 3 representatives capped perfect PIAA tournaments by winning Class AAA and AA boys’ volleyball titles.
Northeastern won its second straight Class AA title by defeating Ambridge 3-0. Central York defeated North Allegheny 3-0 to claim its sixth Class AAA title.
It was the fourth time Central took the state title from NA, with the last coming in 2011.
Both matches were entertaining, and the winners clearly dominated.
Northeastern rolled to the title with game wins of 25-20, 25-15, 25-14 and Central York won 25-17, 25-21, 25-19. Neither District 3 team dropped a game in four rounds of PIAA competition.
In the Class AAA final, all three games took on the same look. North Allegheny started hot, Central caught up, jumped ahead, NA recovered and the Panthers took over when the score reached the high teens.
Central, which finished 21-0, did it with every facet of the game. And the Panthers did it with few errors. They recorded 43 kills in the match and only gave the Tigers 11 points on hitting errors.
When North Allegheny (20-1) found a hitting groove, Central threw up a wall that snuffed the attack.
And they did it with more than one person. Setter Dylan Hose was adept at determining who had the hot hand and gave him the ball. Landon Shorts, Jeremiah Dadeboe and Royce Clemens peppered NA from the outside and Jason Gardner and Alex Klunk dominated the middle.
Any combination of those five hitters created blocks the Tigers couldn’t hit through.
Penn State fans who caught the match have to be thrilled with the play of future Nittany Lions Clemens and North Allegheny’s Brendan Brown. When games were on the line and their teams needed a little something extra, those two senior big guns delivered.
In the Class AA match, the stats were lopsided.
Northeastern had two hitters with double-digit kills (Reese Devilbiss with 15 and Philip White with 11) and a third was one off (Matt Hollinger). Lee Smith finished with 12 for Ambridge, and no one else was close.
Luke Braswell had 32 assists for the winning Bobcats, who finished with only seven errors and 44 kills. Ambridge, which has been in the final four times in the last seven years, was fueled by Aaron Mueller’s 21 assists.