When the Burrell girls volleyball team scores an ace off a serve, they circle together and perform a quick group dance.<\/p>\n
There would be much dancing Tuesday at Burrell High School gymnasium.<\/p>\n
The No. 6 seed Bucs landed double-digit aces to fend off any momentum by No. 11 Chartiers-Houston for a 3-0 victory in a WPIAL Class 3A first-round match. Game scores were 25-13, 25-20 and 25-13.<\/p>\n
Seniors Delaney Plosnauk and Riley Quinn notched three aces apiece for Burrell (14-5). Burrell coach Kourtney Lehman agreed those easy points changed the game\u2019s complexion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about using our serves as our first point of attack, and we definitely went after that today, for sure,\u201d Lehman said. \u201cI didn\u2019t imagine us (doing the ace dance) so many times this late in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burrell made history by winning its first home playoff game in the program\u2019s existence. Coming in, Lehman and her squad acknowledged that proverbial elephant in the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the most fired up we\u2019ve ever come out in any game. We talk every year about making history, and they came out ready and to give their crowd a show,\u201d Lehman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt times, we get too hyped and that works against us, but tonight we used to our advantage. The crowd was into it, and they feed off of that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next up for the Bucs is a visit to No. 3 seed Avonworth on Thursday. The Antelopes swept Brownsville, 3-0, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Senior Brylee Eiler fittingly slammed home the match\u2019s final point on an ace for Burrell. Chartiers-Houston coach Amanda Bilitski was impressed by the hosts\u2019 power on serves and at the net.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had some hard serves that were difficult for us. We adjusted the best we could, but when you serve hard, that\u2019s how you win points,\u201d Bilitski said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBurrell is strong offensively. Defensively, they covered everything. And they hit hard. We hit out (of bounds) a lot on returns. Good to Burrell on that. We played well against OLSH, and we played well against Trinity, but this was our toughest team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plosnauk did a bit of everything for Burrell with 13 digs, four kills and a block as Chartiers-Houston had few answers for the Bucs\u2019 strong net play. Sophomore Hannah Russell played strong for the visitors with four kills and four blocks.<\/p>\n
The Bucs almost blew a comfortable second-set victory. Leading 24-14, visiting Chartiers-Houston (11-7) rolled off six straight points on Burrell errors and a rare out-of-rotation call before Lehman finally called timeout.<\/p>\n
Burrell then scored the winning point when Plosnauk faked like she was setting up a teammate and doinked the ball between Chartiers-Houston defenders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always tell the girls, \u2018You\u2019re too nice!\u2019\u201d Lehman said. \u201cStop being nice. Stop letting them have a chance. Show them you are dominant. Put them away. Don\u2019t give them any hope they can come back at all. It\u2019s something we\u2019ve struggled with and we\u2019ve been working on.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the only time Burrell appeared to ease up after building a lead. But that didn\u2019t phase Quinn, who led a varied Bucs attack with eight kills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, that\u2019s volleyball,\u201d Quinn said with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s a game of mistakes. I think we have a really good skill to come back with that energy, make sure not to get inside our heads and come back every play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now Burrell turns its focus to Thursday\u2019s matchup with Avonworth.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to enjoy tonight and not to put the cart before the horse,\u201d Lehman said. \u201cBut I\u2019ll go home, do my homework before practice tomorrow and make sure we see what they have to bring and prepare for that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Burrell girls volleyball team scores an ace off a serve, they circle together and perform a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-479137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}