Northeastern boys’ volleyball punches PIAA playoff ticket with sweep at Palmyra

The Bobcats went on the road and took down the Cougars in the District 3 Class 3A quarterfinals Thursday evening.

PALMYRA — It wasn’t clean and it certainly wasn’t pretty, but the Northeastern boys’ volleyball team is back where they’ve grown accustomed to being over the past two decades — the PIAA playoffs.

On the road against Palmyra on Thursday evening, the Bobcats dominated enough to land a berth in the District 3 Class 3A semifinals. Thanks to big nights from seniors Hugh Rogers and Koltrin Forry, the Northeastern boys weathered several dry runs to sweep the Cougars, 25-20, 25-21, 25-20, and earn a shot at top-seeded Cumberland Valley next Tuesday.

Rogers finished with 15 kills and Forry had 12 for the No. 13-seed Bobcats (16-3), who secured their first state tournament berth since 2021 with the victory over the tournament’s No. 5 seed. But head coach George Miller knows there’s still plenty to clean up.

“We had more than a few errors,” Bobcats coach George Miller said. “Errors that we just shouldn’t be doing at this time of the year, and consequently, we found ourselves in a tight one.”

There’s no question that the York-Adams League champs have the talent to compete against the best in the state. They battled and preserved in their five-set, first-round clash against No. 4 Warwick — ranked eighth in last week’s PVCA rankings to Northeastern’s ninth — on Tuesday, which earned them the right to face a scrappy Palmyra side.

Miller, however, thought his team had chances to make life much easier on itself Thursday. Rarely one to yell and carry on, Miller called his first timeout in Set 1 and gave his team a short, but emotional, rant.

“I felt like defensively we were giving them a lot of respect,” Miller said. “Probably too much, and they were kind of blowing us up. Now, (Palmyra) is a good team and they have good hitters, but good golly.”

Palmyra’s gym isn’t especially large by area, and certainly not in terms of ceiling height. There were more than a few times balls hit the ceiling, which featured a pair of AC ducts that run parallel to the sidelines.

“This is a tough place to play in,” Miller said. “But both teams have the same restrictions.”

While the Bobcats did enough to survive, Miller is under no illusion that a similar performance against Cumberland Valley in the semifinals will yield a positive result. The Eagles are ranked No. 1 in all of PIAA Class 3A, swept the Bobcats in a regular-season showdown and have dropped only a couple of sets all season — including weekend tournaments against the best competition in the state.

“I mean, we’re all quite happy to get back to states,” said Miller, who has been on the bench for all nine of Northeastern’s state titles (1992, 1993, 2012-18). “But the goal isn’t to just get to states … it’s to win the thing, and before we can get there, we still have a couple of big matches ahead of us, starting with Cumberland Valley.”

It’s certainly rare for a state-ranked team to be the 13th seed in its district bracket, but the District 3-3A field includes nine different teams who were ranked by statewide coaches this season. The Bobcats know they set themselves up for a lower seed by losing a contest against Dallastown in the regular season, but now they’re back at full strength and finding their groove.

“We were dealing with some injuries back then,” setter Jacob Zambito said of the Dallastown setback. “We had to mix up the lineups a little bit and find something that would work.”

Zambito, who dished out 39 assists Thursday, has no doubt that the current lineup is the best one for the squad. After dropping that contest against Cumberland Valley on April 28, the Bobcats have knocked off four state-ranked opponents — Warwick, York Suburban and Central York twice. The Panthers, who ousted Ceddar Crest 3-1 Thursday to make it two Y-A squads in the semifinals, have just those two losses to their ledger so far.

“Once we got into May, we started focusing on our lineup and our positions,” Zambito said. “And now I think we’re sailing.”

So does Zambito think an underdog Northeastern side could pull off the upset Tuesday? He wouldn’t bet against it.

“We actually took the first set that they lost all year against them up at the State College tournament,” Zambito said. “They may have lost more, but we were the first ones to take a set against them. Knowing that is something that I think is going to be a big motivator for us Tuesday.”