The Greensburg Central Catholic girls' volleyball team made its second appearance in three years in the WPIAL Class A title match on Saturday at Chartiers Valley High School.

Unfortunately for the Centurions, the result was the same, as they had to settle for second best a second time.

"It's disappointing to get this far and come up short," Greensburg Central Catholic coach Heather Meyers said after the championship match. "But I'm very proud of what my girls have done this season. And we still have some things to achieve."

Greensburg Central faced a very familiar foe in the WPIAL championship match -- West Shamokin.

The Centurions tied with West Shamokin for the Section 1-AA title. West Shamokin was seeded No. 1 in the 19-team bracket, while Greensburg Central was No. 2.

"We are two talented teams that are very familiar with each other," West Shamokin coach Dan Spencer said. "We had two very competitive matches during the regular season -- we split those matches.

"Tonight was the rubber match. It was a great match and even better to come out on top."

Greensburg Central opened the title match with a 25-23 victory.

"We got off to a good start, but couldn't keep the momentum going our way," Meyers said. "We were playing a little flat today and it came back to hurt us."

West Shamokin reversed its fortunes in game two with a 25-23 victory. The Wolves took control with a 25-18 win in game three, then closed out the match with a hard-fought 28-26 win in the fourth and deciding game.

"This match was everything it was touted to be," Spencer said. "We expected it to be close and you can't get much closer. We had three of the four games decided by two points. That's a tribute to both teams."

Both Meyers and Spencer were impressed with the play of Centurions outside hitters Samantha Chorney and Shannon Hurley.

"[Greensburg Central] has a very strong outside attack with Chorney and Hurley," Spencer said. "Both are talented hitters who were very hard to stop. They make you work so hard to play the ball."

Hurley, a 5-11 freshman, led Greensburg Central with 22 kills. Chorney, a 5-8 senior, had 19.

"Samantha and Shannon have been our offensive leaders all year," Meyers said. "We also had a strong defensive effort by Sarah Blazwich, and Hannah Frankhouser did a great job of distributing the ball to our hitters. It's been a total team effort all season."

Greensburg Central began its playoff run with a 25-13, 25-18, 25-13 win against Northgate in the first round. The Centurions then faced No. 7 seed Bentworth in the quarterfinals and posted a 25-17, 20-25, 25-17, 25-18 win.

Greensburg Central pitched another shutout in the semifinals with a 25-19, 25-18, 25-18 sweep of Beaver County Christian, the defending champion.

West Shamokin earned its title berth with victories against Leechburg (25-4, 25-10, 25-11), North Catholic (20-25, 22-25, 25-19, 25-22, 15-8) and Jefferson-Morgan (25-23, 25-19, 25-15).

The top three finishers in the Class A bracket qualified for the PIAA tournament, which began Tuesday.

Greensburg Central had the unenviable task of facing District 5 champion North Star in the opening round. North Star was the PIAA runner-up last year.

Not surprisingly, North Star, defeated the Centurions, 3-0.

"We faced a stiff challenge in drawing North Star in the first round," Meyers said.

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