The seniors on North Allegheny’s top-ranked boys volleyball team have one more memory to make.
Fresh off a third-place finish at one of the nation’s top high school boys volleyball tournaments, the senior-laden Tigers have set their sights on another WPIAL championship and an elusive state title.
“We want to win everything,” two-time all-state senior outside hitter Will Robertson said. “We want to keep getting better. We’re prepared.”
The Tigers traveled to the second annual First Point National High School Invitational on March 27-28 in Austin, Texas, where they went 5-1 and took third place in the 16-team field. After beating teams from Arizona, Massachusetts and Nevada in pool play, they topped Bolingbrook (Ill.) in the quarterfinals.
North Allegheny lost to defending champion Windward (Calif.), 26-24, 25-22, in the semifinals, before rebounding to beat Shadow Ridge (Nevada) again, in the third-place match.
“That was super cool,” said second-team all-WPIAL senior setter Jackson Failla, who is back at North Allegheny after attending a Chicago-area high school in the fall and winter. “It was amazing. It’s fun to play people from all over.”
The Tigers’ three-day stay included a trip to the rodeo, an afternoon at the hotel swimming pool in 90-degree Texas heat and an authentic barbecue dinner.
This was North Allegheny’s first trip to Texas. Coach Dan Long said the Tigers were invited in December 2024 to compete in last year’s inaugural event, but the timing made it unfeasible.
“It was too late for us to do something like that,” he said.
But, with an invite in hand, the players, coaches and boosters started the process to attend this year’s tournament. They held fundraisers that would defray “the vast majority of the cost for the trip,” Long said.
“It was a good experience,” Long said. “It doesn’t count in the scorebook, but that stuff is meaningful toward the moments that do. It’s a good opportunity for us to grow, and I don’t mind taking some lumps in March.”
Robertson and Failla are among 10 seniors on the roster, most of whom have played together since seventh grade. While seniors being long-time teammates is nothing new in high school sports, these Tigers are rare because they practice and play as a team year-round. They have comprised the North Allegheny club volleyball team during the offseason, often competing against citywide “all-star” teams in out-of-state events.
Unlike many other sports, where high school teammates are scattered about on different club teams during the offseason, the North Allegheny boys, with high-level talent at every position, form their own “self-contained unit,” Long said.
“They have all of the right different pieces to fill out the court,” Long said.
“That’s allowed them to be a club team in the winter that can go play in AAU tournaments.”
Seven of the 10 seniors began playing together in seventh grade — Robertson, Failla, 6-foot-7 all-WPIAL middle blocker Peter Bratich, outside hitter Brendan Moore, defensive specialist Emmett Morris, setter Elliott Swierczynski and reserve middle blocker Luke Conlon.
Opposite side hitter Nathan May and defensive specialist Nick Di Prato joined the party in eighth grade, and hitter Matt Chou came aboard two years ago.
“We’re really close,” Robertson said. “We are all a good group of friends, so that makes it a lot more fun to play together.”
The seniors have more experience together than likely any other class in program history.
“Between high school matches, JV matches, middle-school matches and club matches, they have played hundreds of matches together,” Long said. “There is a lot of familiarity, and I think it has formed a special bond among them.”
The Tigers, who went 18-2 last season and lost to District 3 Cumberland Valley in PIAA Class 3A championship, are 3-0 overall (2-0 in Section 3-3A) as of April 12. They are ranked No. 1 in the WPIAL and state coaches polls.
“Winning a state championship has been our goal since we were in middle school,” Failla said. “We were so close (to winning) last year and that hurt. I know everybody has been looking for that since last year.”
The Tigers are off to a fast start. They blanked WPIAL Class 2A No. 1 Shaler, 3-0, in the season opener March 17 and won the 12-team NA Invitational four days later.
They are scheduled to tune up for the postseason with the State College Invitational on May 2 and the Shaler Invitational on May 9.
The seniors are determined to build more memories in their final season.
“They’ve had a lot of success together and had a lot of those moments, but they’ve also had adversity,” Long said.
“There is absolutely a hunger. My challenge is to make sure that we are embracing the present every day.”