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Colts claim another championship

Northern Cambria's Maggie Hogan spikes a point for the Colts. Photo for the Mirror by Matt Stricker

MECHANICSBURG — Northern Cambria’s Lady Colts are the queens of volleyball for the first time in nine years after dispatching Berlin Brothersvalley, 3-1, in the PIAA Class 1A girls volleyball championship Saturday morning at Cumberland Valley High School.

The Lady Colts (21-2) won their first state title since 2009 and their third championship by scores of 25-13, 22-25, 25-20 and 25-22 over the Lady Mountaineers (24-2-1), who were making their first appearance in the state finals.

For Northern Cambria coach Mike Hogan, now 3-2 in PIAA finals, the road back to a championship was worth all the effort.

“It feels really good. It was a little harder on me. I’m 10 years older, so it’s a little harder to hold it together and get things done. It never gets old though,” Hogan said. “Happy to be back down here again. That atmosphere walking into the gym is awesome and that’s why you do it. To see kids buying in and working hard. It’s nice to see hard work paying off.

“Our crowd made some great noise. For single-A, it was a nice, high-energy game. It was a pretty good one. You have to give credit to Berlin, they didn’t roll over. They kept on battling and pushed us to the end. There was no quit from those kids.”

Sophomore all-state hitter Maggie Hogan owned the day with 26 total kills — eight in the first set, five in the second, seven in the third and six in the fourth.

“She had a great game and you can look at what she did, but someone has to get her the ball. Our libero (Rayna Buza) did awesome today,” Mike Hogan said. “Camryn Dumm, our setter, ran a great offense and made them respect our hitters, which opened Maggie up to hit the ball, so there’s a lot of pieces to that puzzle. Yes, our offense runs through Maggie and she’s a great hitter, but kids have to contribute to make that happen.”

With the Lady Colts up 2-1 and owning a slim 16-14 advantage in game four, Hogan put the team on her back scoring eight of their last 11 points to ice the victory and the state title.

“It is a team game. We kept our confidence high and played our best. I wanted it so bad. It’s always been a goal of mine, a dream of mine, to win this,” she said. “We had to get our confidence back after losing in the district finals. I’m totally looking forward to next year trying to defend the title.”

In game one, Northern Cambria went on an 18-4 run to end the game and take the set 25-13. The Lady Mountaineers hurt their own cause with six service errors.

“We knew coming in we were never going to stop her (Maggie Hogan). Our job was to try and contain her and we didn’t do it. She was every bit as good as we knew she was. Today she played incredible ball and her teammates played well around her,” Berlin coach Corey Will said. “Once we got through the jitters and our erratic serving in the first set, we settled in and played decent ball after that. I’m honored and blessed to be here. It was a great season for us — our first state championship appearance — it brought so much pride to the community. Hopefully, we can come back and take the next step and change the color from silver to gold.”

Berlin took game two 25-22 thanks to the spiking and blocking ability of all-state hitter Kiera Booth. The Mountaineer junior took advantage of her size advantage (6-foot-1) to cause problems at the net for the Lady Colts. Booth finished with 11 kills — five in set two.

“We made a couple mistakes in set two that allowed them to wake their crowd up. It was loud and our kids were looking around, a little rattled,” Hogan said. “I told them to trust your teammates, trust yourself and let’s go. They got rolling again and closed out the next two sets.”

Northern Cambria took game three 25-20 with Jenna Lutch, Nicole Bearer and Brooke Leib coming up with some big kills. Hogan scored 13 total points in the decisive fourth game with Dumm contributing two kills down the stretch.

“We had a good matchup with them. I think we have a better-balanced team. We both have one standout hitter, but our supporting cast was a little bit better than their supporting cast,” Hogan said. “No disrespect to Berlin, our kids moved well and established their base position. I was really happy with our supporting cast.”

The Lady Colts lose only two seniors, so the talk is already turning to defending their state title and bringing back a fourth gold medal to Northern Cambria.

“We’re going to be okay next year. We have a nice group coming back. We’re going to enjoy this for a little while and then get back at it,” Hogan said. “They weren’t supposed to be here until next year. We don’t talk about rebuilding because when you say the word rebuild it allows the kids to think it’s okay to lose. It’s not. Our kids are driven and resilient and they came through when we needed it. They grew up a lot this year and it shows.”

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