Both the Bethlehem Catholic and Emmaus girls volleyball teams have experienced — to paraphrase the old Wide World of Sports theme – the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat this season.

The Golden Hawks are 24-1, but that one loss was a stinging defeat to Emmaus in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference finals. Becahi led two sets to none, but ended up losing in five sets.

The Green Hornets are 21-4 and won a league title for the first time in program history. However, their quest for the school’s first District 11 championship in 30 years came up short thanks to a four-set loss to Parkland in the 4A title match.

The bottom line for both squads is that they know what they’re capable of when they play well and know the consequences when they don’t.

Both played played exceptionally well in their PIAA tournament openers earlier this week and are now headed to the quarterfinals in their respective brackets.

Bethlehem Catholic posted a 3-1 win over District 3 runner-up Middletown by set scores of 25-18 15-25, 25-15 and 25-15 an will now face perennial District 1 power and three-time defending state champ Pope John Paul II (19-2) at 1 p.m. Saturday at Central Bucks South.

Emmaus defeated District 2 champ Delaware Valley 3-0 (25-22, 25-16 and 25-13) and will also head to Central Bucks South on Saturday for a 3 p.m. battle in the elite eight against District 1 champ Spring-Ford.

Parkland, meanwhile, couldn’t follow up its district championship with more success in states. The Trojans, who featured just one active senior, ended their season at 18-6 after suffering a 3-1 loss to Bishop Shanahan, District 1’s No. 4 seed. The scores were 18-25, 25-23, 25-20 and 25-21.

But for Becahi and Emmaus, the beat goes on.

“I think we came out strong and we finished strong and we jut have to clean up the middle,” said Hawks’ coach Jess Attieh.

There was a postmatch ceremony celebrating 1,000 career digs for junior libero Madeline Ahner. She attained the milestone during districts, but added to her total with 24 digs against Middletown.

“Coming into this game, we talked about this being possibly the last game for the seniors and we were focusing on playing for them,” Ahner said. “We love our seniors so much and really will be sad when they have to go. Middletown was a very good team. Coming off the high of winning districts, it felt amazing and still had a lot of adrenaline going for us. We just steady and focus on each game. The goal remains winning the state championship. Pope John Paul is a super amazing team, but we are, too. But we also compete against some very good teams and we just have to play our very best.”

Sophomore Morgan Ostrosky was another catalyst for Becahi with a team-high 14 kills.

“We talked about staying together and needing to work together,” Ostrosky said. “We were making errors and Middletown wanted this match as much as we did. We had to find it within ourselves to bring ourselves together and work together. We all know we have the talent and we can pick each other up. We can be amazing.”

Attieh likes the balance of Becahi’s offense.

“We have outside hitters like Jocelyn [Bell] and Sophia [Bedics] who have a lot of varsity experence under their belt,” she said. “Now we have a young gun in Morgan who is showing out and I think that’s very helpful because now we’re not just relying on he outside. Now we have weapons in the middle and weapsons on the outside and teams have no idea where we’re going.”

Like Becahi, Emmaus knows it is going to state quarterfinals and the Green Hornets are excited about the opportunity to go where no Emmaus has gone in a long time.

“It was nice for us to win the state opener coming off a five-set loss to Parkland,” Emmaus coach Jessica Orlang said. “We got our confidence back up. We got the momentum, we got our offense going and there was no turning back. Parkland did a good job of keying in on our tendencies and they shut down some of our hitters like we haven’t seen before. So, we really worked with our offense on getting different shots and being versatile. At this point of the season, these are high-caliber teams, so we have worked on being less predictable.”

Amanda Rivera led her team with 11 kills against Delaware Valley, while Fiona Answini added eight. Alyssa Heffner had 33 assists, while Rivera had 13 digs and Sophia Freemont and Corrine Slivka had 12 digs apiece.

“We had a two-and-a-half hour bus ride to Delaware Valley which wasn’t easy,” Answini, a sophomore, said. “But we stayed intentional, purposeful and mentally tough throughout it. We knew they weren’t going to just roll over. We had to take it from them. They had a big crowd there, so we had to make sure we focused on ourselves and stayed loud. We just had to play as a team. After losing to Parkland, the next day at practice we decided we were going to use it as fuel. It was disappointing to lose them, but we knew were still going on to states. We just needed to keep moving forward.”