FALLS TO DIVISON RIVAL IN PRELIMINARY

As tough as it is to lose a season-ending game, it was a fitting finale for the Thundering Herd.

Down 2-1 and trailing 23-17, the Carlisle girls’ volleyball team kept grinding away at the lead.

The Green and White scored five points to the Trojans’ one, despite Chambersburg’s seemingly unstoppable return game, before Chambersburg finally snuck a softly-struck kill past a diving Herd defender to cement its place in the sweet 16 of the District 3-AAA tournament with a 3-1 win on Thursday night.

“That’s exactly what we wanted to do, to play with pride all the way to the end,” Carlisle head coach Mike Beachy said. “We struggled a little bit in the middle, but to see us bounce back, we were flying all over the court, getting balls up and making plays. They have to feel good about finishing the night like that.”

The Commonwealth Division rivals had to travel to Dallastown High School for the matchup, after meeting twice during the regular season. No. 18 Carlisle (11-8) won the Sept. 17 match 3-2, but No. 15 Chambersburg (14-5) rebounded for a 3-0 win on Oct. 8.

Sophomore Yanna Regis and Cassidy Hoover paced Carlisle with 12 kills apiece, both putting the pressure on the Chambersburg defense all night. The Thundering Herd forced the Trojan defense to put up 80 total digs on the night, but could not capitalize on the steady pressure in several of the games.

“Our best front-row player right there,” Regis said of Hoover, a standout junior outside hitter.

Senior Lenisa Berrios led Carlisle with 31 assists, while Senior Briana Berrios posted 26 digs and senior Alexis Shughart finished with 16.

The Thundering Herd started out strong, winning the first game, 25-20.


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Chambersburg tied it up with a 25-17 win in the following game, however, beginning to heat up especially in the serving and passing game.

The Trojans would pull away in the third game, starting it off with two aces within their first four points and not looking back en route to a 25-15 win.

The fourth and final game featured six ties early on, but Chambersburg pulled away late, holding on despite Carlisle’s final barrage.

“The game plan was to come in and play as hard as we have all season,” Regis said. “It’s great (to play strong until the end), because we play with a lot of amazing girls. Just to be able to end this experience, especially with all the seniors, it was amazing.”

Up next
Carlisle is eliminated after the tough play-in loss.

Chambersburg returns to action on Saturday, facing off against Central York (15-1) after the Panthers’ first-round bye.

“We haven’t seen them this year, but we’ve scrimmaged them several times,” Chambersburg coach Ty Freelan said. “We’ll come to play. It could be a really good match. They’re big, we’re pretty big too for a high school team, so we have some size that we can match up.”

The game will once again be held at Dallastown with the coin flip scheduled for 4:30 p.m.