{"id":20454,"date":"2025-10-31T04:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T04:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/20454\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T04:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T04:14:07","slug":"erie-prophetstown-falls-to-red-hot-riverdale-in-regional-final-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/20454\/","title":{"rendered":"Erie-Prophetstown falls to red-hot Riverdale in regional final \u2013 Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"

Playing a Riverdale team that looks to be peaking for the postseason, Erie-Prophetstown<\/a> struggled to get going in a 25-23, 25-19 loss in Thursday\u2019s Class 2A Rock Falls Regional final. <\/p>\n

The top-seeded Panthers finished 32-5 as the fifth-seeded Rams (23-10-1) advance to host the sectional at 6 p.m. on Tuesday against Eureka, which beat El Paso-Gridley. <\/p>\n

The upset earned Riverdale its first regional title since 2021. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were relentless from start to finish,\u201d E-P coach Rachel Bramm said of the Rams. \u201cBoth sets, [they] took advantage of some weaknesses that we showed tonight. Full props to them and best of luck moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both teams traded points in the opening set before the Rams began to pull away with a 12-6 lead. The Panthers rallied to tie it at 22-all, but the Rams always seemed to have an answer and make it tough for E-P to put balls away. <\/p>\n

\u201cThose couple runs that they built two, three, four points in a row got us a little bit down on ourselves and allowed them to build momentum,\u201d Bramm said. \u201cThat\u2019s what really made the difference in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

E-P took a 1-0 lead in the second set, but the Rams would not trail again. <\/p>\n

The Rams used soft touches to go over E-P\u2019s blockers, often finding the floor or creating errors in the process.<\/p>\n

Riverdale senior Katie Cox said keeping their energy high throughout the match this time around was key for the Rams. E-P beat Riverdale 23-25, 25-18, 25-19 on Oct. 8.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were really aggressive with our serving, which kept them out of system,\u201d Cox said, \u201cand helped us get some more out of system balls coming our way, so then we were able to put the ball down on their side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riverdale\u2019s defense made it tough for E-P to go on an extended run. Down 23-15, E-P got within five points in the second set before the Rams closed it out. <\/p>\n

\u201cTheir defense is just really sound, they touch a lot of balls,\u201d Bramm said. \u201cThey don\u2019t let a lot of balls hit the floor and it\u2019s hard to score on a team like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riverdale coach Amy Mitton said playing for each other made the difference in the win against such a talented team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so proud of them,\u201d she said. \u201cThey really play well as a team and I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riverdale\u2019s small, but very loud and engaged student section also fed into the momentum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working really hard on keeping teams out of system. More aggressive serves. And when they came at us, we have been working endlessly on our blocks,\u201d Mitton said. \u201cWe took that momentum away from them, and that\u2019s what our goal was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the Panthers were not able to win another regional title after earning their first as a co-op last season, they have put together plenty of wins in recent years. E-P won 32 games the past two seasons and a total of 89 the last three seasons.<\/p>\n

Bramm said this year\u2019s team has been special in her first year as coach. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had 11 seniors this year, which is just unheard of,\u201d she said. \u201cRarely do you ever see a senior class that big that sticks it through all the way. So we\u2019re proud of them and just so happy that they had as successful a season as they did for their senior year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey provided some great leadership and a great opportunity for these younger kids to see an example of what they can do in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Playing a Riverdale team that looks to be peaking for the postseason, Erie-Prophetstown struggled to get going in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,982,980,305,6357,983],"class_list":{"0":"post-20454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news","11":"tag-erie-prophetstown-preps","12":"tag-girls-volleyball","13":"tag-high-school-sports","14":"tag-premium","15":"tag-sauk-valley-front-headlines"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}