SMYRNA - In the final points of each of the three sets of the third DIAA Boys Volleyball Tournament championship, the ball found Salesianum's Reid Maas for his "comfort shot" on the right side.
Each time, he deposited it to open space for the walk-off kill. The first time, he set it down the line. The second time, he bounced it off the hands of an Appoquinimink player in the back row. And the third time, Maas sent it shallow across the net to a soft spot on the left side.
"I try to get a really high reach and get over the block," Maas said. "My coaches always tell me I don't need to go full power. I just try to go 60, 80 percent and pop it into the open court."
The senior exuded the type of precision that has made Salesianum Delaware's best over the past two years. The Sals became the state's first back-to-back boys volleyball champions on May 22, following their victory over Charter of Wilmington a year ago with a 3-0 win over Appoquinimink.
Maas is one of just a few players who played on the Salesianum team that was upset by Cape Henlopen in the first DIAA Boys Volleyball Tournament championship in 2023. When his kill finished the match this time, Maas moved to the center of the Smyrna High gym with his arms high and wide like a goal post and was surrounded by teammates for a group hug.
"This means the world to us," said Maas, who will play at Elizabethtown next year.
Appoquinimink played Salesianum close in each of the first two sets, falling 25-21 and 25-22.
The second set was the tightest. After falling behind 5-0, the Jaguars rallied and took a 20-18 lead. Salesianum then won seven of the final nine points, a stretch that included kills from team leaders Maas, Cody Popp and Andrew Mahoney.
The Sals controlled the third set from the beginning, winning 25-17.
Salesianum suffered its first regular-season losses in the three years the DIAA has sponsored boys volleyball at the First Point Tournament in Austin, Texas in late March. The Sals went 3-2 at the tournament, losing to teams from Missouri and Utah.
"That kind of hardened us up for this season," Salesianum coach Jeff Gricol said. "Down there, they were very dynamic and we were able to play heads up with them, but it taught us a lot. It taught us how to be a little quicker, how to be in our defensive positions faster."
Salesianum entered the tournament seeded second behind Appoquinimink, which went undefeated, dropping only three sets in 15 regular-season games. Riley Buzby (327), Chase Armour (183) and David Oladosu (112) led Appoquinimink in kills entering the championship game.
"Because these guys are so powerful, we had to be in base [defense] properly all of the time or we were not going to defend them too well," Gricol said. "We had to get back to base. That was one of our big points of emphasis. And penetration over the net for blocking. We didn't have a great blocking night, but it was good enough."
"I think we did pretty well on defense and finding Buzby," Maas said. "He was coming in very cross court so we made sure to set the block there and always have a defender for the tip."
Gricol said Salesianum's offense flows from its defense. After finding early success, the offense manufactured opportunities for back-row attacks by Popp, the 2023 Player of the Year. It's not a play many teams attempt due to its difficulty so it can catch some squads off guard.
Salesianum has repped it a lot, Popp said, giving him practice timing his approach and dissecting the opposition as he takes off.
"Once we got it down, we were like, 'we're just going to keep running and running and running it,'" said Popp, who plans to continue playing at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. "We pick corners and it's really, really effective."
Popp said he felt "jittery" playing in the state championship for the first time as a sophomore. This time around, he felt confident and relaxed. When Appoquinimink called timeout in the final set with the score 24-17, the Salesianum huddle didn't feature any rousing speeches. Not much needed to be said.
"It's always fun to end it like this," Popp said.