Phil O’Keeffe planned to be on the quieter side for the Fox Chapel boys volleyball team’s section match with Plum on April 28. The veteran coach wanted to see the Foxes demonstrate their problem-solving skills on the road.
Fox Chapel never found its rhythm and suffered a surprising sweep at the hands of the Mustangs. The Foxes’ loss saw things tighten up in the Section 4-3A standings, which saw Fox Chapel (7-5, 5-2) sitting a half-game behind first-place Gateway and a half-game ahead of third-place North Hills.
The top three teams from each section make the playoffs.
During the 25-21, 27-25, 25-22 loss to the Mustangs, O’Keeffe only utilized one timeout between all three sets.
“I told them at the beginning they need to care of their business,” O’Keeffe said. “They should be able to handle business on their own, and the motivation, me yelling at them or doing whatever, shouldn’t be there at this point. The seniors and the captains should be saying, ‘It’s time to step up, guys.’ ”
Plum coach William Marzina didn’t call a timeout during the match either.
“This is my second year. I’ve kind of learned to trust them more and give them enough time to make their own adjustments,” Marzina said. “We’re a young team. I’m trusting them and learning how they adapt to things.”
The longest stoppage of the match came in the third set when O’Keeffe won an appeal. A Fox Chapel player threw the ball up for his serve, but didn’t go into his motion and pulled the ball back.
Before he could serve again, the referee ruled the previous nonattempt illegal and awarded a point to Plum. O’Keeffe appealed the ruling, and the referee at midcourt went into his duffel bag, pulled out the rulebook and after a discussion, the point was replayed and Fox Chapel scored on a service error to cut the deficit to 11-10.
It wouldn’t be enough to spur the Foxes on to a reverse sweep.
“We have to play well when we don’t have to play spectacularly,” O’Keeffe said. “The first set we had seven green-light sets and we didn’t put any of them away. We had red-light sets, which means get them in, but we didn’t get those in either. We had a lot of overpasses in Game 1 or 2.”
Kagan Joyce and Joshua Nawrocki each contributed a team-high 10 kills for Fox Chapel. The Foxes fell behind 5-0 in the first set due to the hitting of Plum’s Bryce Nabozny, who finished with 19 kills.
Fox Chapel battled back to take a 15-14 lead in the opening set on a kill by Joyce before Plum surged back with a 3-0 run, capped by a kill from Lucas Mikhnyuk.
“They have to learn how to play well independently of who they are playing,” O’Keeffe said. “We’re not ready for prime time yet. That’s a case in point there. I think we should have beaten Plum, but they are much improved. I thought we could have controlled the match, but we didn’t because we didn’t do the little things necessary.”