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Central York could have crumbled.
Brad Livingston's players could have folded.
No one knew how the Panthers would react when they dropped the opening game of the YAIAA boys' volleyball tournament final to a hyped-up and motivated Eastern York team.
They didn't know, because it hasn't happened in league play this year.
Even Livingston could only wait and see what his Panthers brought to the court in the second game of the match at Dallastown High School.
What Central brought was what they've brought to gyms around the league all season: a quick offensive game and triple blocks that shut down any offense the opposition tried getting started.
In the end, the scare that the Golden Knights dished up in Game 1 turned out to
"It's pretty good for me to see we can take a punch and come back from it," Livingston said. "It's good to see we don't have a glass jaw. We took
their best shot and came back. We didn't break."
Central took just three games to blow by Northeastern, the two-time defending YAIAA champions, in the semifinals held earlier Thursday evening.
The first game didn't come easy for the Panthers in that match either as the Bobcats met them point-for-point down the stretch before Central pulled it out, 26-25.
The Panthers rolled to 25-15 victories in the next two games before making the hike from Dallastown's middle school gym to the high school for the final.
It took Eastern York four games to get through Dallastown on its way to the finals.
The Golden Knights won the first two games before being dominated by the second-seeded Wildcats in Game 3, 25-12.
Mike Kraft rallied his team back in Game 4, disposing of Dallastown, 25-21, to advance to the showdown with Central.
It may have been the trek from the middle school -- or it could have been the rush Eastern York had coming off its energy-filled win
"We started off really sloppy," Central senior Ryan Wolf said. "We had a lack of energy and weren't excited because we played Eastern twice before and beat them in three games. We lost focus because we knew we could beat them."
Livingston reminded his troops of the play that got them to the finals in the first place.
He asked them to refocus and to play like they knew how to play.
It didn't take long for Eastern to see that the Central team that stepped onto the court for Game 2 was completely different from the one it had just beat, 25-18.
In the first game, Eastern played the Panthers' game, speeding up the offense and getting good passes.
Central returned to regular form in the final three games.
"They came at us with what we came at them with in the first game," Eastern coach Carol Thompson said. "We knew what we had to do and we did it in the first game. We just couldn't keep it up. In the second game, Central just sped up their offense and we weren't able to close with the block.
"They had a good, solid triple-block, and they were triple-blocking everything. That triple block made the difference because it's the one thing that they didn't do in the first game."
The Panthers didn't leave much doubt in the second and third games, running out to early leads before claiming 25-14 and 25-20 wins.
Central took a slight lead in the fourth game before Wolf reeled off eight straight points to all but hand the Panthers the championship.
It only seemed fitting for Wolf to put the final exclamation point on the win when he drilled a laser -- his 12th kill of the game -- between two Golden Knights to finish Eastern off, 25-12.
