Oct 26, 2006 By Mike Ciarochi 3 min read

CANONSBURG – Falling behind was the beginning of the problem. Expending too much energy in comebacks took its toll, as well. The end result was a 3-0 loss by the Jefferson-Morgan Rockets to Seton-LaSalle in the first round of the WPIAL Class A volleyball playoffs Wednesday night at Canon-McMillan High School.

JM ends its season at 13-6, while the Lady Rebels (19-2 and seeded third) move to a quarterfinal matchup against the winner of tonight’s Frazier vs. West Shamokin.

“We got down and it took its toll,” Lady Rockets coach Ron Headlee said. “That makes it hard to get a rhythm. When we did catch up with them in the third game, we got two bad breaks in a row. We got it to 16-16 and they hit a net serve that dropped on our side and then the referee got in the way and they got a point. It we could have taken a lead there, we might have won a game.”

The Lady Rockets’ best chance was in the first game, a 25-21 Seton-LaSalle win. After falling behind 14-5, JM closed to within a point at 20-19, but could not take the lead.

“That would have been nice to win that first game,” Headlee said. “I think it would have been a different night all together. But that’s typical of the kind of year we’ve had. We tend to hang around with teams until about 16 points, then we either go ahead and win or fall behind and lose.”

Seton-LaSalle coach Ray Bobak said his team survived despite not playing as well as it is able.

“We’ve been better,” Bobak said. “The hard part is we’ve never seen any of these teams before because we’re new to Single A.”

The Lady Rebels were a Class AA entry last season, but dropped down this season. They also dropped in the rankings recently, from second to third in the WPIAL. Bobak said that got his players attention.

“The girls have more motivation now because we fell in the rankings and we don’t know why,” Bobak said. “But it’s good to get this first win out of the way. It takes some of the pressure off.”

Jefferson-Morgan fell behind 10-2 in the second game and was behind 20-9 in a 25-15 loss. The Lady Rockets dropped the first seven points of the third game before battling back to forge a tie at 16-16.

Headlee lauded his players, especially the eight seniors he and the program will lose.

“Our seniors played hard for us all the time and tonight was no exception,” he said. “We knew Seton-LaSalle had two big hitters, but I thought we handled them pretty well. We hurt ourselves on our service returns. We settled down a little bit, but we couldn’t get in a good rhythm.

“We had a pretty good season, though. We always get to the same point. We would like to take it to another level, though.”