San Marcos and Mater Dei went down to the wire in their CIF-SS Division 1 girls volleyball quarterfinal playoff match on Tuesday.
With the team score knotted at one match apiece, the Royals and Monarchs battled to a deciding third set at the Nos. 1, 3 and 5 pairs.
Fourth-seeded Mater Dei prevailed in all three matches and also swept at the No. 2 spot to claim a 4-1 victory at the Ridgway Courts on the San Marcos campus.
San Marcos ends its season with a record of 18-3. Mater Dei (12-4) advances to the semifinals against either top-seeded Mira Costa or Newport Harbor.
The scenario on the sand was just what you’d expect from a CIF quarterfinal playoff in any sport. The athletes on both sides made incredible plays and sometimes got lucky shots off the tape to keep their teams alive.
“We went and battled,” said San Marcos coach Tina Brown. “In a couple of the matches I feel like we probably could have come out in the second game and been a little more fiery. But regardless, they still battled all the way into that third game, all three courts. And you walk away with your head held high because that was good fight.”
The third set at the No. 5 position went back and fourth from the start. There was some controversy at 13-13 when a Mater Dei player ran down her partner’s pass into the net and appeared to touch the bottom of the net as she bumped the ball out. The teams played out the rally (per the rules) before San Marcos players Kaylin Cooney and Evyn Miller protested that Mater Dei’s Ashley Bradford and Lily Van Eenenaam should have called a net violation.
The players took their disagreement to match monitor Brant Lee and he ruled that the teams replay the point.
On the replay, Mater Dei made it 14-13 on a kill by Bradford and followed with the winning point on a Bradford service ace. The match scores were 21-17, 16-21, 15-13.
At the No. 3 pairs, Brooke Hoadley and Devyn Brunet were on fire in the first set and won 21-17. They took a 17-14 lead in the second set on a Hoadley ace serve, but Mater Dei’s team of Tiani Shaw and Kori McKeever fought back with a five-point run.
McKeever got hot down the stretch, scoring on consecutive plays for a 19-17 lead. San Marcos sided out before McKeever scored again to make it 20-18. The Royals sided out and had a chance to tie the score at 20, but a poke shot went long, giving the Monarchs at 21-19 win and forcing a third set.
In the third, Shaw/McKeever capitalized on tape shots and jumped out to a 6-1 lead. San Marcos cut the deficit to 10-8 but that was as close it would get. Mater Dei won 15-11.
Brown felt the players might have been feeling the pressure of playing in the first CIF quarterfinal for girls volleyball. This is the second year of CIF girls beach volleyball but the first with playoffs and championships.
“I feel like we got maybe a little tentative. We weren’t firing as hard as we had been in the first set,” said Brown.
“I feel like there’s sort of this belief that, ‘We got this, we’re gonna win it. We won the first game.’ And, it’s remembering to stay in it and to fight and battle.”
At the No. 1 spot, the San Marcos duo of Lily Blankehorn and Riley Green showed good ball control, played tremendous defense and finished rallies to beat Mater Dei’s twin-sister team and Tulane recruits of Tawny and Skylar Ensign in the first set 21-17.
On a crazy final point, Blankenhorn chased a ball off the right side of the court, bumped it high over the net and hustled all the way back to the left side to pick up a short one-over by the Ensigns. The twins them committed a hitting error to end the set.
The Ensign sisters opened up a 15-7 lead in the second set and finished it with six straight points for a 21-7 win.
The sisters took the third set, 15-10, giving Mater Dei a sweep in the three-set matches at 1, 3 and 5 positions.
Mater Dei also won at the 2s, with Holly Hopkins/Saylor Little beating Josie Gamberdella/Alina Stapf, 21-16, 21-15.
San Marcos’ lone win game from the No. 4 team of Elena Thomas/Katie Kracke over Valerie Uriarte/Michelle Fazio of Mater Dei in straight sets, 21-13, 21-18.
In an exhibition match, Lila Westmacott/Jillie Yager of San Marcos defeated Fey Perez-Conte/Ashley Lara, 21-11, 22-20.
San Marcos co-coach Cassidy Drury-Pullen was impressed by the quality of play from both teams.
“I think one thing that everyone should be happy about is just seeing how far the sport of beach volleyball has come (at the high school level),” she said. “We’re now CIF Division 1 quarterfinalists and playing really high-level competitive volleyball.”