Mikey Denver’s potent play in the middle led the Santa Barbara High boys volleyball team over a scrappy Long Beach Poly in the first round of the CIF-SS Division 2 playoffs on Thursday night.
Denver, often facing one or no blockers, blasted 13 kills and committed just two errors in a 29-27, 25-20, 25-21 sweep at J.R. Richards Gym.
“He’s the best middle in our league and in our town,” said Santa Barbara coach Chad Arneson of Denver, a 6-foot-4 junior who posted a .684 hitting percentage. “When we get Mikey going, we can spread the offense a lot better and create one on one situations.”
Will Harman led the Dons with 15 kills on the outside.
Santa Barbara advances to a Saturday second-round match against Aliso Niguel. The match will be at J.R. Richards Gym at 5 p.m.
The Dons were on the verge of dropping the opening set of the first round as Poly’s Lucky Iosue made a solo block to put the Jackrabbits ahead 25-24.
A service error and hitting error put Santa Barbara at game point, 26-25. But Poly came right back on a kill through the block by outside hitter Jackson Trunnelle.
The score was tied again at 27 when setter Ford Harman fed Denver for a kill and the lead. Will Harman then dug a Poly attack and Ford Harman went outside to Raglan Kear for the game-winning kill. Kear has seven kills.
“They’re scrappy,” said Arneson of Long Beach Poly. “I give a lot of credit to Sid (Davidson). I’ve coached against him a lot when he was at St. John Bosco. I got a lot of respect for him. He’s a good coach.”
Poly (17-13) was coming off loss against Long Beach Millikan in a battle for second place in the Moore League.
“(Poly) came ready to go and we were just a little flat-footed and playing a little tight,” Arenson said. “We were not playing loose and not playing free, but we’ll take the win. I told the guys great teams find a way to win. And I reminded them, ‘We’re a great team, but we got to learn how to get out of certain ruts when we’re in a tight situation.’’’
The Dons (23-8) found themselves in another tight situation in the second set. But they got a big lift off the bench from Jameson Savellano. With the score tied a 19, he went on a four-point serving run and made some defensive plays to keep rallies alive.
“We needed something like a different jump serve, or some sort of surge,” said Arneson’s of Savellano’s contributions. “Jameson works his tail off. He’s down at East Beach with Mike Maas training. The guy loves volleyball, and I’m really proud of how much he means to the team, and it showed. He was a big spark plug for a run there and quite turning point.”
A tip by Will Harman and a dump by Ford Harman accounted for the final two points in a 25-20 win.
The Dons found their groove in the third set. Will Harman served three straight aces to open up a 5-1 advantage. The lead got as high as nine (21-12) before Poly made a late run to close the gap.
“It was definitely not our best performance,” said Arneson. “Hopefully, we can learn from this and understand what we need to do in order to advance to the next round.”