Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

NEW MILFORD — Holy Redeemer spent more than a decade expertly avoiding upsets as District 2’s premier boys volleyball program.

Relegated to underdog the past two seasons, the Royals proved Tuesday in the Class 2A semifinals that they could thrive in that role as well.

Holy Redeemer shook off a sloppy start to end second-seeded Tunkhannock’s 15-match winning streak in four sets.

The Royals won by set scores of 21-25, 30-28, 25-17, 25-23 to advance to the June 1 championship match at North Pocono against defending champion Blue Ridge, the unbeaten, top seed.

Johnnathan Rocha and Mike Dubaskas were part of a balanced offense and played big roles as blockers as Holy Redeemer neutralized Tunkhannock’s veteran lineup.

“We’ve come a long way with just one returning starter in Josh Rocha and he’s only a sophomore,” said Holy Redeemer coach John Kablick, who has two freshmen, two sophomores and just one senior on a 13-player roster. “Everybody else is a first-year varsity player and his brother (Johnnathan) is a first-year volleyball player. He had never played the game before.

“They have just come so far. That was a really good team we beat and a senior-laden team.”

It was also a team that swept Holy Redeemer when they met in the regular season, but Kablick saw hope in the fact that two of those three sets were decided in overtime – and that he felt errors by the Royals had contributed to the Tigers’ success.

When another set went to 30-28 Tuesday, it was Holy Redeemer that came out on top, starting its way back from losing the first set.

Freshman setter Jack Wasiakowski spread the ball around with 36 assists as four hitters reached double figures in kills.

“Our setter did a great job getting our guys, one-on-one,” Kablick said.

Josh Rocha had a team-high 13 kills, along with 12 service points and seven digs.

Dubaskas had 12 kills and seven blocks.

Cody Rood, the lone senior, had 11 kills and a team-high 13 points.

Johnnathan Rocha had 10 kills while leading the team with eight blocks.

Wasiakowski added nine points.

Tunkhannock was led by Shane Macko with nine kills. Evanston Myers had eight kills and 10 assists while Marcus Binner had 21 assists and three blocks.

After winning the long second set, Holy Redeemer raced out to an 18-10 lead in the third set. Tunkhannock (16-2) made things interesting the rest of the way, but could not stop the third-seeded Royals (13-4).