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PLYMOUTH — The next-t0-last match of the regular season pretty much finished the way it began.
A string of points here and another spree there made Berwick too much to handle at the service line.
And now, the Bulldogs have a firm grasp on a girls volleyball league championship.
Camille Pinterich served 16 straight points in the first game Thursday, Glorimar Guzman served up six consecutive points in the third and Berwick moved to the brink of a Wyoming Valley Conference title by battering Wyoming Valley West, 25-2, 25-13, 25-13 at the Valley West High School gym.
“It was very important,” said Sarah Steeber, who finished with five kills and three dinks in a match filled with unforced errors, while leading Berwick with eight total points. “Districts are coming up. We just want to keep winning.”
With the top seed in the District 2 Class 3A playoffs pretty much secured, the Bulldogs set their sights on a league crown.
They’re currently 13-1 and tied with perennial league power Holy Redeemer at the top of the WVC standings, but according to Berwick coach Sarah Warner, there will be no playoff if both teams finish with the same record. Berwick would be awarded its first WVC championship by virtue of beating Holy Redeemer head-t0-head earlier this season.
That means the Bulldogs can clinch the title in their regular season finale by beating 5-8 North Pocono in a home match Monday.
“It’s been in the works,” Warner said of this season’s success. “We just kind of kept our head down and worked really hard in the offseason.”
In the end, Berwick simply overworked the Spartans on their Senior Night.
Steeber made a kill off Pinterich’s first serve, then Pinterich served two straight aces to open a 16-point run that left Berwick with an 18-1 lead in the opening game.
“I just really think out things, really work on direction,” Pinterich said.
Later, Karley Hower finished her run of four straight service points with an ace, then Cecilia Isenberg finished up the first game by serving a pair of points.
It was like that all night.
Pinterich was back at it in the second game, bashing two unreturned serve among a string of nine consecutiv service points that had Bewick in control with a 12-1 lead. Isenberg added a couple of aces later in the match and Berwick closed out the game with a kill by Liberty Gearinger and a dink from Morgan Nevel.
“We did a very nice job controlling the serve,” Warner said. “But we also worked hard on controlling the defense.”
The Spartans had no defense for Berwick’s consistent serving.
Pinterich served up six straight points in the third game and Guzman finished her stretch of six service points with four aces in a row as the Bulldogs bulldozed their way into a 13-4 lead.
Pinterich finished with 28 points in four trips to the service line on the night, Nevel finished with four kills, Gearinger added three kills and Isenberg and Emily Roman added a block and a kill apiece.
Now, the Bulldogs have a chance to added a championship to their highly-successful season.
“It’s really big,” Steeber, a freshman, said. “Last year, we weren’t nearly as good as we are now. And we want to keep just getting better.”
Berwick 3, Valley West 0
Bewick — Camille Pinterich, 28 service points; Sarah Steeber, 5 kills, 3 dinks; Morgan Nevel, 4 kills, 1 dink; Liberty Gearinger, 3 kills; Gorimar Guzman, 12 service points.
Valley West — Trinity Johnson 4 kills, 1 block; Sommer Wright, 1 kill; Leah Payne, 1 kill; Karlee Peters, 1 dink.