DONS ARE AT THEIR BEST IN SWEEPING TOUGH FOE
The Southern California Regional Open Division girls volleyball playoffs started with a doozy of a match Wednesday night. Try Los Angeles Marymount, the 2021 state Open Division champion, visiting Cathedral Catholic, the reigning state Open champ.
Marymount was a perfect 35-0 in ’21. Cathedral was an unblemished 42-0 last season.
With a video board flashing the message “This is our house,” third-seeded Cathedral defended its home turf in dominant fashion, knocking off the sixth-seeded Sailors 25-20, 25-15, 25-12. The match lasted just 78 minutes.
By comparison, the Dons needed nearly 2½ hours to beat rival Torrey Pines in the San Diego Section Open Division title match last Friday.
Cathedral (33-4) will hit the road Saturday for the
Cathedral Catholic 3, L.A. Marymount 0
semifinals, facing secondseeded Manhattan Beach Mira Costa (39-3), which beat Chatsworth Sierra Canyon on Wednesday night in four sets.
As to why Cathedral was so dominant against the Sailors (28-12), coach Juliana Conn said her players felt a sense of urgency. It was win or turn in your uniforms.
“I think it was an unspoken sense of urgency,” said Conn. “They knew the season could end with a bad performance. The seniors didn’t want this to be it. We hadn’t played our best volleyball in a while. Tonight, we did.”
The first set was the only one that was competitive. The match was tied at 12, but after the Dons ran off five straight points, the end seemed inevitable. Michigan-bound 6-foot-3 middle blocker Jenna Hanes clinched the set with an emphatic kill.
“That was super fun,” said Hanes, who led the Dons with 15 kills. “We had a big crowd, we were playing a really tough competitive team. We knew we had to bring our ‘A’ game.”
What was most impressive was that Cathedral didn’t give Marymount any chance to get back into the match, sweeping the last two games by a combined 50-27.
“I think all teams, once you get a little lead, you take a step back,” said Conn. “You take a little breather. We did that against Torrey Pines.”
Against the Falcons, Cathedral swept the first two sets, backed off, watched Torrey win the next two sets before pulling away in the fifth set.
“What clicked today was, (giving up) one point, OK, two points (in a row) that’s not OK,” said Conn. “We didn’t let our foot off the gas.”
Of Hanes’ 15 kills, nine came in the third set.
“My setter (Amanda Saeger), she was setting the ball so well. She just kept feeding me,” said Hanes. “I stayed back a little to see the blocks and hit around them better.”
Hanes had plenty of support at the net. Sophomore Sophia Johnson, who at 5-7 is blessed with serious hops, posted 12 kills. Tiana Owens and Ayva Moi added nine kills.
“That,” said Conn, “was Ayva’s best match of the season.”
The Dons were solid defensively, too, with libero Maya Evens, Conn’s daughter, scraping balls off the floor.
In another Open Division quarterfinal, fifth-seeded Torrey Pines was defeated by fourth-seeded Huntington Beach in a heart-breaking loss, 25-19, 26-24, 21-25, 1925, 16-14.