Volleyball Roundup: Valley teams do work in tourney action
NATIONAL CITY — This past weekend, four area schools took a jaunt out west to participate in the Prime Sports Varsity (volleyball) Invitational hosted by Sweetwater High School.
The Central Union Spartans, Holtville Vikings, Imperial Tigers, and Southwest Eagles went into the pot with 32 other teams and fought it out to see who could float to the top.
Some squads made it higher than others.
The tournament stretched out over two days, beginning on Friday, and finishing on Saturday.
On Friday, tournament teams — having been sorted into pools of four — participated in a round robin, playing three (best of three) matches, one against each other team in the pool.
The results of these matches were then used to partition the schools into five separate brackets, with “Gold” at the top and “Ruby” down at the bottom (with Silver, Bronze, Copper and Diamond in between).
No Valley team emerged from the Round Robin unscathed.
Holtville and Southwest fared the best, each managing to go 2-1 and find their way into the Bronze Division.
The Vikings spent the first day mired in tough, gutit-out matches. Only one game, out of the seven they wound up playing, was decided by a margin of greater than four, and that was their very first of the day — a 25-15 win over San Ysidro.
The heartbreaker was a match against Serra High. The Vikings dropped the first set 23-25, before winning the second 25-21. In the third, abbreviated game, they had a real chance to win it but ultimately fell short 13-15.
Even though they finished with a “same-on-paper” 2-1 record, Southwest had themselves a di erent sort of Friday.
The Eagles spent much of their time carving out huge leads and making them stick. They opened the day by treating the Kearny High Komets to a 2-0, 25-10, 25-10 shellacking, and went up 1-0 against the Golden Eagles of San Pasqual (previously seen dusting Imperial 3-0, back on Aug. 21) before they ran into some stumbling blocks and dropped the next two sets.
Not satisfied with that for a legacy, Southwest proceeded to vent their spleen on High Tech San Diego, bulldozing the Bruins 2-0 (25-15, 25-15) to end day one on a high note.
Imperial’s tour ‘round the robin would see them take a few lumps, but it opened up with the Tigers giving the Crawford Colts a lesson in stampedes.
They ran absolutely roughshod over the kids from SD, winning 2-0, 25-5, 25-6, but their next two opponents seemed intent on imparting some lessons of their own.
Hilltop High was first up. The Tigers dropped a three setter to the Lancers 1-2 (15-25, 25-18, 9-15) and then Valley Center followed that up by besting them 2-0 (2426, 25-23) in an absolute nail-biter of a match.
These losses put Imperial into the Copper Division for Saturday’s play.
Full results from Central’s matches had not been provided as of press time, but they did lose at least two Friday matches 1-2 (25-16, 15-25, 13-15) to Mountain Empire and 0-2 (11-25, 17-25) to Otay Ranch. Some statistical high-achievers for day one included: • Madison Jungers, (Southwest junior) who accumulated 25 kills over her team’s three matches.
• Erika Arellano, (Southwest junior) who had 47 assists and 8 aces over the same span.
• Sadriena Rodriguez, (Southwest senior) who popped up 26 serves.
• Cady Davis, (Imperial senior) got 19 kills, including nine on nine attempts against Crawford
• Ale De la Trinidad, (Imperial senior) who was masterful with the spade, making 31 digs Day two brought things into brackets. As previously noted Imperial found itself in the Copper. Having done so, they decided to make the best of things … by winning out.
First, they took care of Mira Mesa, beating them fairly easily — 2-0 (25-22, 25-11) — thanks to a solid team effort.
Next, they tangled with Sunnyside (out of the Fresno area). Beating them took a bit more doing, but they had it in them and prevailed 2-1 (19-25, 25-15, 15-11). Some familiar names took on starring roles in this one — regular readers are of course familiar with helping hands of Jayce Pendley and Julianne Camalich (they combined for 27 assists) and there to be the beneficiary of their largesse, were Cady Davis and Alyssa Chavarria who batted down 15 kills between them.
The Tigers then found themselves playing for the Copper Division championship. They faced off against the Falcons of Andrew Hill High, who had made the long trek down from San Jose, and treated them to some good, old-fashioned southern hospitality, beating them 2-0 (25-11, 25-21).
In the Bronze Division bracket, Southwest and Holtville found themselves a ways apart, needing to make something happen to come together for an Imperial Valley League preview. Southwest was more than obliging, but Holtville couldn’t quite hack it. The Vikings lost their first Saturday match to Mar Vista 1-2 (23-25, 25-23, 8-15), keeping them out of the running for any hardware.
Southwest, however, had to have a cup. So they went and got one.
They beat host Sweetwater 2-0 (25-8, 25-14). One up, one down.
They beat High Tech Chula Vista 2-0 (25-8, 25-16). Two up, two down.
And then, in the final against Mar Vista, that selfsame Mar Vista that had put paid to Holtville, they showed what the Valley can really bring, winning 2-0 (25-21, 25-20), making it one day, two trophies for IVL teams.