The real Marist High of Chicago showed up at the Santa Barbara High boys volleyball Karch Kiraly Tournament of Champions.
After arriving in Southern California on Wednesday night, the RedHawks played at national No. 1-ranked Mira Costa on Thursday afternoon and got plucked in three sets.
They found their groove in Santa Barbara over weekend, winning three TOC matches to set up a rematch with the mighty Mustangs for the championship.
Marist dropped the first two sets, frustratingly failing to close out four set points in the second set. But the defending Illinois State Champions shook off the disappointment, regrouped and showed why they’re ranked No. 2 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association High School Boys Volleyball National Top 25.
The RedHawks made big play after big play and pulled off the reverse sweep, taking down Mira Costa in an epic final, 20-25, 26-28, 26-24, 25-23, 15-12, on Saturday at J.R. Richards Gym.
Marist (10-1) was led by the hitting and setting of junior and Ohio State commit Christian Teresi, the outside hitting junior Nathen Toth (MIT commit) and the tenacious play of 6-1 middle Griffin McElroy, who was honored as the tournament MVP and Teresi and Toth earned all-tournament team honors.
Marist coach Jordan Vidovic was overjoyed by his team’s performance against one of the premiere programs in the country.
“I mean we’re grateful to get this experience, you know, to just be able to get out here,” said Vidovic, who was the Volleyball Magazine High School Boys Coach of the Year in 2024. “I was just telling (Mira Costa coach) Greg (Snyder) when I played, this wasn’t even legal. You couldn’t even travel out of the state. Mira, Costa was like a big powerhouse. I knew all their players when I was playing, but I’d never get a chance to play them. So I tried to explain to our guys how cool it is. And, you know, we have so many seniors. To get them this experience is just unreal. And they brought a lot of experience into this game, a bounce back from when we played them the other night, and learning a lot and assessing a lot in the last two days.
“It was just insane volleyball.I mean, that felt like a college match.”
The speed of play and the quality was elite level. Mira Costa’s outside hitters of 6-foot-11 Grayson Bradford, 6-6 Thatcher Fahlbusch and 6-7 Cooper Keane and middles 6-6 Wyatt Davis and 6-5 Alex Heins punished the RedHawks with thundering hits off Andrew Chapin sets.
But Marist played stellar at the net — led by McElroy — and in the back row to keep plays alive. It also helped the RedHawks that Mira Costa committed several serving errors. The Mustangs made one at 24-24 in the third set. The winning point followed on an ace by Devlin Biggs of Marist.
Mira Costa led 22-20 in the fourth set but a serving error started a 5-0 Marist run, giving it the win to even the match at 2-2.
“I felt we played well in most regards but not all,” said Mira Costa’s Snyder, whose team is now 28-2. “We definitely didn’t serve as well as we did Thursday night against this team, and our serving wasn’t as tough, and we made way more errors. I really think that was the difference between us winning and losing. Tonight, it was from the service line.”
Snyder expected Marist would play much better in their second meeting.
“I didn’t know what happened to them on Thursday, but I knew they would come back and play a hell of a lot better game. And they definitely did. They played great defense. Christian (Teresi) was absolutely incredible. We just didn’t have the answers,” said Snyder.
“Once we were out of sorts, we were out of sorts, and they do not let you off the hook. We could never find our way back, said Vidovic of Thursday’s loss. “We got progressively better in these three matches in the tournament, so we felt better about us today. We didn’t care, win or lose, we wanted to show our stuff. We didn’t get to do that last time.”
The fifth set was tight all the way. Teresi, playing at the net in the RedHawks’ 6-2 alignment, ripped a backset from Jacob Finley to give them a 13-11 lead. Mira Costa sided out on a Marist over-the-net violation. On the next play, Biggs hit high off the Mustangs’ block to make it 14-12.
Teresi ended the match on a jump-serve ace, and the RedHawk celebration was on.
“We didn’t have anything to prove to anybody else,” said Vidovic. “We wanted to prove to ourselves what we could play like at that level of play, and that we did.”
In the semifinals, Marist defeated No. 3-ranked Huntington Beach in four sets (21-25, 25-20, 25-18, 25-23) while Mira Costa swept St. John Bosco (25-19, 25-16, 25-23).
Local Results
San Marcos finished strong, recording sweeps against Folsom (25-20, 25-21, 27-25) and Camarillo (25-17, 25-22, 25-19) to finish in fifth place.
Sophomore and all-tournament selection Matteo Burdick carried the Royals’ attack with 28 kills in the two wins (16 against Folsom and 12 vs. Camarillo).
Basketball standout Koji Hefner produced eight kills in each match from the middle position. Calvin Frisell had six kills and three service aces in the Folsom match and produced seven kills against Camarillo. Setter Ayden Welch had a solid day with 40 assists, 10 kills and four aces. Tyler Walker added 25 assists and a pair of aces.
Santa Barbara lost a consolation semifinal match to Bullard in five sets (22-25, 21-25, 25-22, 25-16, 15-12) and bounced back with a sweep over Pleasant Grove of Utah (25-12, 25-17, 25-14) for 11th place.
Dos Pueblos finished in 13th place after beating its No. 2 team in four sets and Arroyo Grande in five.
All-Tournament Team
The all-tournament team consisted of Nathen Toth and Christian Teresi of Marist, Andrew Chapin and Wyatt Davis of Mira Costa, Ayden Forester of St. John Bosco, Jack Degraff of Folsom, Logan Hutnick of Huntington Beach and Matteo Burdick of San Marcos.