The victory advanced the Falcons into Saturday's quarterfinal round.

BENSALEM — A week ago, on the same floor, the Pennsbury boys volleyball team saw its hopes of competing for a PIAA District One Class 3A title evaporate with a loss in the district semifinals.

Skip ahead a week to Tuesday night and things were much different for the Falcons.

Competing as the third-place finisher out of District One, Pennsbury took on District 12-champion La Salle College in the opening round of the PIAA state tournament and came away with a thrilling 3-2 victory to remain alive in the tournament. The loss ended the season for the Explorers.

"Playing fifth sets are really stressful," Pennsbury junior Jacob Loerch said. "The set is only to 15 and that makes every point that much more important. We had some momentum from the fourth set and that helped us. Some of that momentum carried over and we were able to get the win."

The victory moved the Falcons into Saturday's scheduled PIAA state quarterfinals against District Three-champion Central York.

As for Saturday's match, the Falcons are hoping to have it moved to Friday because Pennsbury's Senior Prom is on Saturday night and the match will be held in District Three.

The Falcons, who qualified for the PIAA state event by knocking off Pennridge 3-1 in last Thursday's District One third-place match, came out slowly against La Salle, dropping the first set 25-19 and falling into a quick hole.

"We didn't know a lot about them," Pennsbury senior setter Andy Delworth said. "We knew that they usually win their league and that they had a really good record, but we didn't know much else about what kind of team they had.

"They played really well and both teams really battled the whole way."

Down a set, the Falcons (16-3 overall) evened things up by taking the second set 25-20 only to see the Explorers (19-5) regain control with a 25-21 win in the third set.

"La Salle has a strong team and they came right after us," Pennsbury coach Justin Fee said. "Their middle hitters were really tough and we had to work for everything that we got. We have to start serving tough because that's something we're not doing. Then we went down 2-1 and knew that we had to fight back if we wanted to keep the season going."

The Falcons did just that in a wild fourth set that saw La Salle grab early leads of 5-3, 10-6 and 15-14 before things tightened up, eventually going to 24-24. From there, Pennsbury was able to close out the set and force the decisive fifth set.

"Fifth sets are always crazy in volleyball games," Delworth said. "But we're a really tight-knit group and we were able to survive."

The Falcons survived a fifth set that they led from the start, including a 12-8 advantage,  that was quickly erased by a 4-0 Explorers run. Things weren't decided until a kill from Loerch made it 17-16 and then a kill from Delworth ended things.

"As a setter, I don't get many kills," said Delworth. "But it came over and I just went up and was able to put it away. That was a really good match between two good teams and I'm very happy we were able to come away with it."