TOWAMENCIN – Coming off the best regular season in North Penn girls volleyball history since 2012, sights were set high for the playoffs. Dropping their first district match in four sets against lower seeded Council Rock South was not in the cards of the Knights faithful.
After a historic 14-0 run to start the season, breaking a North Penn record set in 2008 of most wins to start a season, the Knights (16-2)(11-1) dropped two of their last four games to earn themselves the #7 seed and a bye round in the District One bracket.
#10 seeded Council Rock South (16-3)(11-1) captured a 3-0 sweep over #23 Phoenixville in the first round of districts and carried that into their matchup with the Knights.
The first set of the match was dominated by CRS, and a North Penn timeout after going down 8-1 did not halt the momentum of the Golden Hawks. Down 18-5, North Penn called another timeout but was only able to bring the final set score to 25-12.
The second set was much of the opposite; after being tied at 6 a piece, a Madlen Potrusilova kill started the Knights run, and her younger sister, junior Sofie Potrusilova, added three aces in the 7-0 run that pulled the Knights up 13-6.
The Golden Hawks wouldn’t give up the set easily, as senior Olivia DeSaro and CRS served up five straight points before North Penn’s Madlen Potrusilova delivered back-to-back aces to stop the bleeding.
Junior Teju Arun added two kills off assists from Sofie Potrusilova, and senior captain Isabelle Mikulski assisted kills to both Maya Mikulski and Sofie Potrusilova as the Knights pulled away to find themselves up 23-17. Taking after her sister, Sofie landed two aces to seal the second set 25-17, and tie the match at 1-1.
Shades of the first set again in the third at CRS took an early lead and continued to extend, eventually pushing their lead to 10 points. Sophomore Holland Van Ooyen added a kill and an ace, but there wasn’t much offense from the Knights side of the net.
Council Rock South took the third set 25-14, and the fourth and final set would prove to be the closest set yet. North Penn would consistently hold a one point throughout the beginning of the set, highlighted by two Van Ooyen kills, but as soon as the Golden Hawks took a 13-12 lead, they never looked back.
The Knights would come within three points, but weren’t able to regain the lead despite multiple kills from Maya Mikulski and Madlen Potrusilova, as Council Rock South took the set 25-20, and the match 3-1, ending the North Penn playoff run much sooner than expected.
“I cannot believe we did it [make it this far]. To be honest, the last two years we have been absolutely stacked in players, and this year was kind of like, ‘okay, we’ll see how it goes’ season,” captian Madlen Potrusilova said. “The fact that we [made it this far] just shows how close we are as a team and how sweet the girls are. The energy on the team is just so good. No one is ever blaming each other, I’m always smiling and that’s because everyone is just so positive, so I think that’s whats really historic.”
Council Rock South will travel to play #2 Springford on 10/25 at 1 PM in the round of 8 in the District One playoffs.
S1 S2 S3 S4 Final
North Penn 12 25 14 20 1
Council Rock South 25 17 25 25 3
