The top three high school boys volleyball teams in the latest American Volleyball Coaches Association national poll are competing in this weekend’s 16-team Karch Kiraly Tournament of Champions at Santa Barbara High.
Mira Costa comes to town as the top-ranked team in the AVCA Super 25 poll; Chicago’s Marist, the defending Illinois state champion is No. 2 and Huntington Beach is No. 3.
They’ll join locals Santa Barbara, San Marcos and Dos Pueblos and 10 other schools in the two-day, best-of-five sets, bracket-play competition. Play begins Friday at 11 a.m. with Mira Costa facing Dos Pueblos’ No. 2 team, and Los Alamitos taking on Pleasant Grove of Utah.
The Dos Pueblos No. 1 team plays Camarillo at 12:45 p.m. Santa Barbara opens the tournament against Folsom of the CIF-Sac-Joaquin Section at 2:30 and San Marcos takes the court at 4:15 against Fresno-Bullard. Camarillo is ranked 21st in the latest CIF-SS Power Ranking; Folsom is ranked No. 5 in the CIF North Region poll and Bullard is fifth in the Central Region.
Rounding out the tournament field are Downey, St. John Bosco (ranked 22nd in CIF State Poll), Arroyo Grande and a No. 2 team from Mira Costa. St. John Bosco is coached by Gerald Aquiningoc, who guided the Long Beach Poly girls to a five-set win over Bishop Diego in the CIF-SS Finals during the fall.
“This year’s tournament is stacked with a lot of great teams,” said Santa Barbara coach Chad Arneson, who thanked Dos Pueblos coach Ehren Hug for bringing in a second team to fill a vacancy due to a team dropping out this week.
Mira Costa is led by 6-foot-11 outside hitter and UCLA commit Grayson Bradford and sophomore outside Mateo Fuerbringer, the son of former Stanford All-American, pro beach volleyball standout and U.S men’s national team assistant Matt Fuerbringer.
The Mustangs (24-1) swept Marist in a match in Manhattan Beach on Thursday afternoon.
Marist (6-1) is a powerhouse program from Illinois. The state title last season was its fourth in program history.
Huntington Beach is 24-2, with its losses coming against Loyola in the Best of the West tournament and Mira Costa in the Redondo Union Invitational. The Oilers have an experienced lineup led by outside hitters Logan Hutnick and Ben Arguello and setter Kai Gan, a Harvard commit.
The semifinals will be played Saturday at 10:45 a.m. at Santa Barbara and the championship match is scheduled for 6:15 p.m.
San Marcos will host some consolation matches on Friday and Saturday.