Jun. 22—Fifteen recently graduated volleyball players who accumulated District 10 championships, state playoff wins, state title berths and all-state nods gathered for one last high school game on Wednesday.
Meadville Area Senior High School’s House of Thrills was the site of the District 10 boys volleyball all-star match presented by the Tool City Volleyball Club. It pitted Team White versus Team Orange.
The match did not disappoint, as it went to five sets with Team White winning 3-2 (25-20, 29-31, 20-25, 25-22, 15-13).
“It’s pretty cool. I think they might have done an all-star match way back when, I am not sure. I am definitely jealous of the guys. I would have liked to play in a match like this,” Team White head coach Rob Cierniakoski said. “I am glad these guys came out and put on a good show. It went all the way to five, a bunch of swings, it was good.”
Cierniakoski, the head coach of Cochranton, had Andrew Custead as his setter. Custead, a Cochranton graduate, finished the match with 54 assists, five digs and one kill that came off a rare full swing from the 5-foot 9-inch tall future welder.
Custead got to play against Chase Miller, another former Cochranton Cardinal. Miller had eight kills and four digs. As well as some good-natured trash talk between longtime teammates.
“It was fun. We’ve played against these guys all year and playing with them is a whole different world,” Custead said. “Playing against Chase, that was fun too. Especially when I blocked him. I had to let him know.”
Custead earned most of his assists by setting up Mercyhurst Prep graduate Octavian Sperry. Sperry, a Juniata College commit, led the match with 34 kills. He added seven digs and four aces.
In the second set, each team’s offense was on full display with big swings aplenty. With the score tied at 29, Meadville graduate Jackson Decker smacked a kill into the back line before a well-placed ace in the back corner gave Team Orange the win.
Decker stayed aggressive and the Saint Francis commit tallied 23 kills, nine digs and one ace.
“It was nice and a lot of fun. The opportunity to do this, no where else is doing this, so it is really exciting that we get to,” Decker said. “We have some travel team going, so I am playing against a teammate from the season and against guys I’ll be playing with next week.
“It was a lot of fun to play against our rivals from last year, this year and my own teammates. It was special.”
Team Orange setter Brady Greco, a Hiram College commit and Saegertown graduate, finished with 38 assists and four digs. He also enjoyed the opportunity to talk some trash to former teammate Quincy Zook. Zook had eight kills for Team White.
“I was able to talk to him. I called out where he was hitting every time,” Greco said. “It was a lot of fun playing with and against guys I’ve grown up playing for the last eight or so years.”
In the fifth set, it looked like Team White would run away with it after a 7-3 and a 14-9 lead. Kills from Miller and Decker, followed by two hitting errors made the set 14-13 in favor of Team White. A service error proved to be the match-closing point.
Win or lose, all 15 players were grateful to play one last high school volleyball match.
“It is a nice way for them to go out. We told them in the huddle that they are a special group of seniors. They made District 10 competitive over the last couple years,” Team Orange and Meadville head coach Nick Bancroft said. “It was entertaining and a fun match. Lots of offense, a lot of good defense, good plays and they got to show off a little bit.”
Other Crawford County players in the match were Kaiden Boozer of Cambridge Springs, Nolan Rados of Conneaut, Hunter Graham of Meadville and Isaac Johnson of Meadville.
For Boozer, he has one more all-star appearance to make. The former Blue Devils is also slated to play in the North-South all-star football game on Friday at Allegheny College.
“I am grateful to be part of this and play with kids that are going off to play at college and play with everyone one last time. It was a blast,” Boozer said. “This week has been a blast. We started on Sunday and I’ve practiced all week. We had football practice off today, which worked out so I could come out here and play. It’s been busy, but I’ve had a blast.”
Alex Topor can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at [email protected].
