DV wins boys’ varsity volleyball AAA District 2 title

May 23 was championship Thursday. Two boys’ varsity volleyball games were played for district titles. As it turned out the four very best teams made it to the title games to play each other. If you wanted to see the best volleyball games of the year, then Thursday was your chance. All games were played at Scranton High School.

Delaware Valley took on Wilkes-Barre for the AAA District 2 title, and then Blue Ridge battled Holy Redeemer for the AA class title.

Delaware Valley and Wilkes-Barre had the first game. It was basically a dominating show for Delaware Valley. They swept three straight sets with scores of 25-18, 25-14, and 25-16.

Wilkes-Barre is a fine team who already defeated Hazelton, another fine team, in the preliminary game earlier in the week, winning three out of four sets and coming in third place overall.

However, against Delaware Valley, there was never any doubt, as all three sets caused no misgivings for faithful Delaware Valley fans.

Delaware Valley played lights out volleyball. The team was so dominant that, while I was sitting near a representative from another school not playing, he said that Delaware Valley was one really good volleyball team. Yep I agree. Of the four teams that I saw play that night, Delaware Valley clearly seemed to be the class of the court.

Here is my unofficial tallies of each player. Chris U’Glay had 17 kills and Tommy Parker had four kills and two aces. At one point in the first set, it almost seemed that Parker held service for over half of the game. Wilkes-Barre just couldn’t seem to win against his serves. Ritesh Patel slammed down four kills and scored two aces. Gino Gualandi had three kills, a block and three aces. Aiden Papula had two kills, Luke Peereboom had one, Demetri Anc had two, and Samuel Yost scored an ace.

I can’t emphasize enough what a total team effort this victory was.

I am going to state this again, if Delaware Valley plays to their full potential, I believe that we have a state championship team that will set the bar for all future teams.

This marks two distinct championships in a row for Delaware Valley.

In the second match up, Blue Ridge had a real battle on their hands, but they managed to defeat Holy Redeemer in a game that could have gone either way. Although I thought that Blue Ridge had slightly superior talent, Holy Redeemer fought tooth and nail and forced five sets before they fell to Blue Ridge.

So now Delaware Valley and Blue Ridge will move on to the states in their respective categories — Delaware Valley in AAA and Blue Ridge in AA.

I wish them both the very best for success but let’s face it, my heart is with Delaware Valley.

A side bar regarding the preliminary game against Abington Heights: during one play, Chris U’Glay smashed a kill that unintentionally went directly onto the face of an Abington player with stunning effect. Chris immediately crossed the net to the Abington side to check on the player and assured him that it was unintentional with a sincere apology. A true act of sportsmanship that even the Abington fans appreciated.