SMYRNA — Salesianum won its third consecutive DIAA boys volleyball championship on May 21 at Smyrna High School, but the Sals had to work overtime to secure the title. Even that was not nearly enough.
The top-seeded Sals and rival Cape Henlopen battled for more than two hours in front of an energized crowd before Andrew Mahoney’s attack bounced off the hands of a Vikings blocker and landed out of bounds. Only then could the players, coaches and fans exhale and celebrate a 3-2 victory. The set scores were 25-20, 23-25, 25-18, 22-25, and 18-16.
“I was definitely stressed the whole time. I’m not going to lie about that. They’re a great team. We knew it was going to be a great game with them. They have some great hitters, made some great plays, and it was a great night for us.”
“I was definitely stressed the whole time. I’m not going to lie about that,” Mahoney said. “They’re a great team. We knew it was going to be a great game with them. They have some great hitters, made some great plays, and it was a great night for us.”
Salesianum opened the night with a 9-0 start, but No. 11 Cape Henlopen settled down and played evenly with the Sals the rest of the way. Mahoney was big for the Sals all night, attacking from both the front and back lines, as well as from the service line. One of his bombs put the Sals up, 16-8, in the first, and the lead remained at eight at set point. Cape saved four of those, however, before the first ended on a service error.
The Vikings, coached by Salesianum graduate Tyler Coupe, took a 7-3 lead in the second on a blast by Braxton Figgs, prompting a Sals timeout. Salesianum tied the match, 8-8, and the teams were back and forth from then on in the set. At one point, Mahoney scored on kill to tie the score at 14, then delivered an ace to put the Sals up by one. Sawyer Valle gave Salesianum a 17-15 lead, but Cape stuck around, led by Ryder Van Horn. He tied the match with a bomb that ended the second.
Cape Henlopen’s Lawson Whaley opened the third with an attack, but the Sals scored eight of the next nine points, capped by a Thomas Bamonte ace, and the Vikings called for time. The Vikings cut the lead to two points several times, the last at 20-18 after a kill from Whaley. Salesianum, however, ran off the final five, with the clincher coming on a Jacob Lyons ace.
Alex Jankiewicz scored three of the Sals’ first five points in the fourth as they looked to end the match. But Van Horn and Braxton Figgs helped Cape to a small lead, which grew to 14-9 midway through. Jackson Orndorff came in late in the set and scored a few times during a 7-1 run that gave the Sals a 16-15 lead. Cape was trailing, 18-16, when Coupe called a timeout, and they took advantage of a few Sals errors to close out the set with a 9-4 run, knotting the match at two sets each.
That set up the deciding set, an abbreviated sprint. Salesianum jumped out to a 2-0 lead on a John Peters kill and a Vikings hitting error, but Cape scored the next three, punctuated by an ace from Whaley. Max Gruszka hit a bomb, and Jankiewicz followed with a kill, and the Sals were back on top.
With the Sals leading, 5-4, the Vikings went on a 3-0 run, the final point coming on an ace from Jacob Panyko, and Sals coach Jeff Gricol got a timeout. A hitting error on the Sals extended Cape’s lead to three, and the Sals would not tie the set until Gruszka blocked a Cape attack that made it 11-11. A spectacular save by Bamonte on the next point set up a Gruszka winner, and Salesianum retook the lead.
Gruszka came through again to send it to championship point at 14-12, but the Vikings were not done. Van Horn had a kill, and a Sals hitting error tied it. Another hitting error on the Sals gave Cape its first championship point, but Sawyer Valle evened the score with a nice cross. The Vikings moved to championship point once more after a Sals service error, but a hitting error brought the Sals back even.
Mahoney came through to lift the Sals. He scored with an attack off a Viking to give the Sals their third championship point, then sent the next one off the block, securing the program’s third title in the four years boys volleyball has been a DIAA-sanctioned sport. The first year, when Mahoney was a freshman, the Sals lost to Cape, something he had not forgotten.
“Since my freshman year when we lost here, it was not a good feeling,” he said. “After that game, I definitely did not want to feel that again. We’ve worked hard for the past three years, and we’ve earned this.”
Valle, a junior, won his second championship of the year. He is a member of the soccer team, which captured a title last fall. He said the Sals just kept working no matter what the score was.
“We just played it like practice. At practice, we play hard and go hard, and even if we lose a set or we lose some points, we keep our head up,” he said.
Photos by Mike Lang.
