Waynesburg girls volleyball team back in semifinals
Local roundup
Mark Marietta
Waynesburg Central’s girls volleyball team is right back where it was a year ago.
The second-seeded Lady Raiders knocked off No. 10 South Allegheny, 3-1, in their WPIAL Class 3A quarterfinal match at Waynesburg on Thursday night to set up a rematch with No. 3 Avonworth (17-3) in the semifinals while also clinching a spot in the PIAA tournament.
That match is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at North Allegheny. The other semifinal, which pits top-seeded Freeport against No. 5 Seton LaSalle, will follow.
Waynesburg (19-0), which fell to the Lady Antelopes in last year’s semifinals, 3-2, enters the final four with a perfect record for the second consecutive season under coach Dan Higinbotham.
Waynesburg took the first set from the Lady Gladiators (15-7) on Thursday, 25-17, but the visitors evened the match at 1-1 by taking the second set 25-21. The Lady Raiders dominated the final two sets by scores of 25-14 and 25-12 to put the match away.
Railey Bochna rang up 17 kills, seven digs and six aces, and Emily Rafferty totaled 10 kills, 12 digs and five aces for Waynesburg, which also got 39 assists, seven digs and two aces from Chatham Knight, 12 kills, seven digs and two blocks from Harper Grimes, 21 digs, three assists and four aces from Lelia McCollum, three kills, two digs and two aces from Emma Blair and two kills and two digs from Julia Fisher.
The Lady Raiders earned only their second trip to the state playoffs with the first coming last year thanks to a 3-1 win over Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in a third-place consolation match.
SERRA CATHOLIC 3, GEIBEL CATHOLIC 0 — The 10th-seeded Lady Gators saw their successful season come to and end in the WPIAL Class A quarterfinals at second-seeded Serra Catholic.
Scores were 25-13, 25-16 and 25-16.
Geibel (9-11) was coming off a first-round, 3-0 upset of seventh-seeded Union on Monday.
Neville Petrosky led the way for the Lady Gators in Thursday’s match with 10 kills and a block. Geibel also got 10 digs from Nolace Petrosky and 12 assists from Nora Al-Fakih.
HAMPTON 3, BELLE VERNON 0 — The third-seeded Lady Talbots swept the visiting sixth-seeded Lady Leopards in a WPIAL Class 4A quarterfinals match.