Defending champ Eagles face difficult slate

Section realignment pits Serra Catholic against “perennial contenders all together.”

LIAM BELAN lbelan@yourmvi.com

The Serra Catholic volleyball team conquered Class 1A as WPIAL champions and won a state playoff match last season with a squad that featured nine seniors.

While they cashed in on their experience last year, coach Keith Trahan made it clear that his program is expecting to be among the best in its class once again despite all the departures.

Cassidy Trahan and Bethany Pasternak are back and ready to take over as the true leaders of the team as the Eagles hope to return to the district championship for the third straight season.

“We’ve got a good crew after (Cassidy and Pasternak), but we’re working hard to get everyone up to speed because they’re the only two that have high-level varsity minutes,” Keith Trahan said. “We’ve got some underclassmen that are coming up the ranks, and we’re really excited because we’ve got four freshmen that are gonna play strong varsity minutes.

“That’s how we started this last group that just graduated; they were able to start as freshmen, so we’re excited about getting them time.”

The four of Ryleigh Carper, Kiley Fettis, Rilya Richards and Sara Ridilla will gain plenty of experience in their rookie campaigns as there are lots of spots for the taking.

Senior Deaysia Mitchell will play as a middle blocker/ right side, junior Laura Schanck will be a defensive specialist, fellow third-year player Nikki Sfanos will feature and Kalissa Jacomen will be an outside hitter.

That’s a group of 10, which Trahan acknowledged is on the small side, but it’s for a reason. A few more players will be able to work into the varsity group, but it’ll be kept to a low number. They’ll look to give those players important experience and also maintain a culture that has played a large part in their ascension as a program.

“As long as we’ve been here, we’ve always talked about maintaining the culture,” Trahan said. “We really bring people into the program, and I think it’s a big part of our success. We’re always trying to be successful, but we’re trying to take it one match at a time. We’re trying to learn as we go with this group.

“Varsity-wise, we’re going to keep a relatively low number to give them maximum reps. We’ll have a larger JV that will allow more girls to learn and grow, and we’ll have a core of about 10 to 12 girls on varsity.”

Keith Trahan is in his 12th year at the helm of Serra Catholic’s volleyball program, and he said that he’s never had as much trouble with a schedule as he has this year. The reason for that is the new grouping for the Eagles, Section 5-1A, which is not only extremely difficult but made up of only five teams in Serra, Bishop Canevin, Brentwood, Eden Christian Academy and Fort Cherry.

“The section realignment is hard,” Trahan said. “You can’t make everyone happy, but we’ve gone from a pretty good section travel-wise and competition-wise to, I mean, come on. Again, I’m not in those meetings, but I think that it’s a little unfortunate that you put perennial contenders all together when you have 28 schools in 1A.

“We’ll play the teams in front of us, but it’s not helpful. It’s disappointing for us. And because we have a small section, it’s been difficult to find opponents that can play. It’s been by far the most difficult season to schedule since I’ve been here. It’s just disappointing after working so hard to establish ourselves. But, it is what it is. We’ll work hard.”

Serra Catholic defeated Bishop Canevin in last year’s WPIAL championship, and they’ll now have to play twice in the regular season. The Eagles will also take on squads like St. Joseph’s, Seton LaSalle and Trinity out of section, but they haven’t managed to fill their entire schedule yet.

Regardless of who they’re playing, Keith Trahan made it clear that they’ll be ready to go. He’s looking to get the most out of this team that he can, and feels that the Eagles will know their full capabilities once they hit the midway point of the year.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been handled easily during the season, so we want to be competitive in every match,” Trahan said. “We want to compete in the high quality tournaments we play in, and we want to be in position to challenge for section titles and get through the playoffs.

“I think by the middle of the season, we’ll have some people ready to play at the level necessary to at least be in the mix in Single A. It’s going to take a while because we’re young, but we’ve got good size and Cassidy and Beth are two of the best players around. The two of them are going to be coaches on the court, and they need to help their teammates out. I think it’ll be a good thing to put them in that leadership position, and we’ll see how it goes from there.”