ALLENTOWN — Lehighton Senior Emily Haberman tallied her 1,000 career assist, but her milestone achieving performance couldn’t prevent the Indians’ loss to powerful Allentown Central Catholic in the quarterfinal round of the District 11 Class 3A volleyball playoffs.

Wednesday’s 25-11, 25-19, 25-8 loss was hard fought and didn’t dampen Haberman’s achievement or the team’s successful season explained Lehighton head coach T.J. O’Connor.

“We were proud of her, she’s the first 1,000-assist player that we’ve had in about 10 years,” said O’Connor.

Central Catholic, the No. 1 ranked Class 3A team in the state, showed its talent early. With kills from Grace Barr and Megan Nelson, The Vikettes jumped out to an early 10-4 lead, scoring six points in a row.

The two teams then traded points until Vikette captain Emily Pellini began serving. The senior served nine straight times as ACC pulled away and eventually closed out the 25-11 win. During the run, Rachel Hess threw down several powerful kills.

The second game proved to be a much closer battle between the two teams.

“We very well could have said ‘hey we’re happy to be here’ and go back on the bus,” O’Connor said about his team effort. “But we didn’t do that. Game two in particular, we were in it. We fought hard every point.”

The Vikettes scored the first four points of the game but the Indians battled to tie it back up, which proved to be the theme of game two.

From 8-4 to 14-13 and then 22-18, the game remained close throughout.

ACC eventually edged the Indians 25-19.

“I have to give credit to Lehighton’s defense, they played well,” said Allentown Central Catholic coach Laurie Corcoran. “They weren’t afraid to go after some hard strikes by our big hitters.”

After the tight game two battle, Central Catholic came out swinging in what proved to be the final game of the match.

Hess scored the opening point by smashing another kill off of a Lehighton player and into the crowd and Ava Graspy served nine straight points as Vikettes took command early.

Hess then showed why she was named the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference MVP. She drilled four more kills and also showed off her strong sinking serve, scoring five straight points and giving her team a 15-5 lead.

A few points later, ACC handed Barr the ball and never looked back. Barr served the last seven points to close out the 25-8 victory.

LOOK OUT BELOW ... Hess finished with 13 kills, almost all of them powerful, crushing blows.

TEAM EFFORT ... After explaining her team’s setter was very sick and limited Wednesday night, Corcoran emphasized the importance of being well-rounded by saying, “We want to get as many people involved as we can so that if we run into a situation like this, we are prepared.”

INDIANS NUMBERS ... Haberman finished with 11 assists and four digs for Lehighton. Samantha Banning had 14 digs, Lillian Brown added 13 digs, and Emily Miller had five kills and three digs.

FINISHING UP ... Lehighton closed the season with an 11-10 record.