Maurer, Metalios lead St. Anthony's to CHSAA title
St. Anthony's girls volleyball players were all smiles after knocking off Holy Trinity in the CHSAA final. (Nov. 9, 2010) Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Of all the stats to sum up Kerin Maurer and the St. Anthony's girls volleyball's powerhouse season, perhaps this one is the most striking: The entire season was a clean sweep.
From first match to last, the Friars (16-0) didn't drop a single game along the way, and limited opponents to 20 points or less in every game.
The script was the same at St. Dominic last night where No. 1 St. Anthony's beat No. 2 Holy Trinity, 3-0, for its third consecutive CHSAA title and fourth in five years. The Friars now try to repeat as state CHSAA champs this weekend at York College. The team went into 2010 returning all the starters from the state title squad.
"I think it's going to give us an edge over the competition from upstate," said Maurer, a libero who had 14 digs and was named match MVP. "It'll give us the experience that we need in big-game situations, like we had last year, to just pull through and be state champs again."
Mariel Metalios, named the CHSAA player of the year at the match, had 34 assists and seven digs. Katie Gallagher had 12 kills and eight blocks, Michele Impellizeri had nine kills and nine blocks and Stephanie Sheehan added 10 kills and eight digs.
St. Anthony's opened Game 1 with an 11-1 run on its way to a 25-13 win.
The Friars were even more dominant in Game 2, winning 25-10 and never allowing Holy Trinity (13-3) to score consecutive points.
But the Titans weren't going to end their season with a whimper and made some noise in Game 3. Holy Trinity tied the score at 3 - the first time St. Anthony's hadn't led all evening - and, after taking a brief 6-5 lead, fought back to tie the score again at 9, 10 and 18. For a moment the sweep streak looked in doubt, with Holy Trinity's confidence buoyed and the Titans' supporters cheering and stomping the wooden bleachers.
But St. Anthony's wasn't about to let its streak end on the last game of the season.
"I think maybe we let up a little bit," Maurer said. "But at the end we started to realize that we cannot let up at all, and we just pushed through."
A 6-2 run and it was game point. Impellizeri leaped up for the kill, and the CHSAA title again belonged to the Friars.
"It's good for it to be a fight and have a team give us a challenge," Maurer said.
That hadn't happened too often this season for St. Anthony's, for whom the sweep is now complete.
