Yucaipa sweeps Redlands in Citrus Belt League match

Yucaipa boys volleyball coach Megan Marnati spent Wednesday evening looking up and looking down.

Marnati looked up at her tall team, which had a decided height advantage over Redlands. Marnati also looked up at Redlands High School’s girls gymnasium, peering at steel girders which are 30 feet above the court.

And in the end, she looked up at a favorable scoreboard after junior outside hitter Joshua Fry had nine kills to lead a team effort as Yucaipa swept Redlands 25-15, 2518, 25-13 on Wednesday night to remain unbeaten in Citrus Belt League play.

Yucaipa improved to 21-3 overall, 3-0 in the CBL. Redlands fell to 5-8, 3-1.

“Redlands was 3-0 in the CBL, so they were the team to beat,” said Marnati, who is in her fifth season as the Thunderbirds’ coach. “We have a lot of good hitters and our defense was phenomenal.”

Marnati also spent some time looking down behind the bench. She was looking after her seven-week old son, Maddox. He entered the world and the volleyball portion of it at eight pounds and eight ounces.

Coaches sometimes want to leave postgame media conferences early for a variety of reasons. This could include needing to make transportation connections, having trouble speaking, or displeasure with the questions. In this case, young Maddox Marnati was very hungry.

Maddox’s mom said her team has some really good hitters. Included on that list are senior middle blockers Reagan Sager and Sawyer Ferero, and libero Dylan Spry. Junior James Lopez did a capable job setting up the taller players.

“We came out ready to play,” Marnati said.

The T-birds scored the first seven points of the match, and Redlands never cut the deficit below four points during the opening game.

According to the website Living New Deal, the Redlands High School girls gymnasium was constructed in 1936 as part of a Works Progress Administration project. Redlands coach Daryk Mall said the boys’ team practices in the building and believes the team has a home court advantage.

Mall said the height of the gym doesn’t really come into play, and it appears the girders are higher than in the more-recently constructed Terrier Gym. There were a couple of balls hit among the girders, but the visitors from Yucaipa played those balls well.

“For administrative reasons, we can’t have CIF playoff games there,” Mall said, adding that the badminton team uses Terrier Gym for their practices.

Mall acknowledged that Yucaipa had a height advantage, but said his teams had ways to try to neutralize that.

“We struggled because we hadn’t seen them before,” Mall said. “We will work on options to use against taller players. We just didn’t execute with our tools.”

The teams will square off again Friday, April 5, at Yucaipa.