The Dos Pueblos pair of Chloe Hoffman and Lucy Speier battled down to the wire against the No. 2 seeds from Mira Costa in the semifinals of the inaugural CIF-SS Beach Volleyball Pairs Championship.
Hoffman/Speier pushed Savanna Lau/Tanon Rosenthal to three sets and fell just short in the deciding set, falling 19-21, 21-14 16-14, on Wednesday in Huntington Beach.
“We had match point,” Dos Pueblos coach Mike FitzGerald said of the third set. “We just fell short.”
Hoffman/Speier finished tied for third with Harvard Westlake’s Bella and Alex Adishian in the 48-team tournament. The Ardishian sisters lost to top-seeds Charlie Fuerbringer/Erin Inskeep of Mira Costa in the other semifinal in three sets.
Fuerbringer/Inskeep defeated Mira Costa teammates Lau/Rosenthal in straight sets in the final. Mira Costa was also the Division 1 team champion.
Finishing third in CIF was an amazing accomplishment for Hoffman and Speier, who came together as partners this season and were DP’s No. 1 team all year. They lost only three matches, with two of them coming in postseason competition.
Both players are headed to college to play beach volleyball, Hoffman at Stanford and Speier at the University of San Francisco.
Hoffman/Speier led Dos Pueblos to the Channel League team championship and the CIF-SS Division 1 quarterfinals. They also won the league’s pairs title.
“I thought we played our best volleyball at the end of the year, winning the league title and then the pairs league title,” said FitzGerald. “The level at the final four was incredible. I am so proud of the way they competed.”