North Catholic tops Frazier to win first girls volleyball title in school history

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, November 3, 2018 | 4:24 PM

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The North Catholic girls volleyball team didn’t have much history on its side going into Saturday’s WPIAL Class AA championship match.

But the Trojans had something even better: the Felix sisters.

Trojans outside hitter Dominique Felix anchored a front line that Frazier had no answer for as No. 2 seeded North Catholic rolled past the fourth-seeded Commodores, 3-0, to claim its first WPIAL girls volleyball title at Fox Chapel.

“We’re just so excited,” said first-year North Catholic coach Amanda Fetter. “Literally, from top to bottom, you cant ask for better. I have not been around too many people that deserve (this) more than them.”

North Catholic (20-0) moves on to the PIAA Class AA bracket and will pick up play Tuesday against District 5 champ North Star. Frazier will also get back to action Tuesdayand will play District 10 champ Corry. Sites and times to both matchups have yet to be determined.

“Our plan going in was to just play our game,” said Dominique Felix, a Sacred Heart recruit. “We kind of come off to a slow start so today we really wanted to get in there and I think the energy we had coming into the game was so good. It’s overwhelming.”

The Trojans didn’t have to worry about a slow start. North Catholic asserted it’s dominance at the net from the onset. Felix was an issue for the Commodores, and they never really came up with an answer for her. Felix put the Trojans up early with two quick kills to give North Catholic a 2-0 lead. The speed and accuracy of Felix’s kills was eye opening for a Frazier team that had seen nothing like it all season. Felix finished with 18 kills and sister, Alana Felix, added four.

“I had prepared my girls, in a sense, for what they were going to see today,” said Frazier coach Mandy Hartman. “This really isn’t our typical match. We’re a bunch of home-grown kids, and we’re going to go out and fight (in the PIAA’s) on Tuesday. Our story is not over just yet.”

The Trojans stormed out of the gates, to a 7-0 run and to a 17-6 lead on its way to a 25-13 first-set win.

“In the first time out, I said, ‘You’ve seen and you got to do soemthing about it or this is going to get ugly,’ ” Hartman said. “It just took a little bit too long, and the other part of our game wasn’t good enough to get Skye (Eicher) the ball.”

It was more of the same in the second set.

The Trojans jumped out to quick 8-2 lead mainly on Frazier hitting errors and more of Dominique Felix, middle hitter Gabriella Mudd and Alana Felix. The second set ended on a Frazier dig that went straight up into the air and fell back down to the floor with Commodore players looking at one anther. North Catholic dominated, 25-11, to end the second set.

“I felt like they were catching up to the speed of the game as it progressed,” Hartman said.

The third set was much different and one could see the team that went down 2-0 to top seed Freeport before storming back for the win. The Commodores took their first lead of the match at 6-5 compliments a Sierra Twigg kill. Frazier kept it close and battled. Twigg added another kill to draw the score to 19-17 in favor of the Trojans. The momentum looked to swing so much it brought Fetter out of her seat. North Catholic closed out the third set on a Frazier hitting error to complete the straight-set sweep. Skye Eicher finished why nine kills, Twigg tallied six, and Logan Hartman added five to lead the Commodores.

“We were prepared for battle today,” Fetter said. “We’re thankful for how it happened and and grateful for the way that it did.”

William Whalen is a freelace writer.

Tags: Frazier