Santa Barbara High boys volleyball came up just short in a five-set battle with Sage Hill in the CIF-SS Division 4 Championship match on Saturday inside J.R. Richards Gym.
The Dons won two of the first three sets but couldn’t come out on top as the Lightning caught fire down the stretch to win the final two sets and the CIF-SS title, 15-25, 25-13, 18-25, 25-20, 15-8.
“To get here is quite an accomplishment, but to win it, it’s even harder,” Santa Barbara High head coach Chad Arneson said. “I give our boys a lot of credit. They played hard. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of our best overall team performances.
“I’m so bummed for our boys because they worked so hard, but they should be proud of what they’ve accomplished.”
Sage Hill’s CIF championship is the program’s second straight, as the Lightning came out on top in Division 5 last season. Meanwhile, the Dons have now been to two championship matches in five years.
Santa Barbara High’s strong playoff run came following an up-and-down regular season that featured a third-place finish in the Channel League and some struggles in marquee matchups.
“I don’t think a lot of teams or even the community thought we were going to go this far with this kind of group, so I’m really proud of our boys,” Arneson said.
“I’m proud of our guys. We did not look this good at the start of the season,” Santa Barbara High senior Jack Goligoski said. “This whole playoff run, we’ve kind of found our lineup and everyone’s just stepped up and played great team volleyball. We don’t have any real standouts, but we always play really well together.”
The Dons will learn if they will continue their season in the State Regional Tournament when brackets are released on Sunday.
In the opening set, the two teams battled to a 5-5 tie, but a kill and a block by Benicio Duarte on back-to-back points gave the Dons a two-point cushion.
Santa Barbara held onto that advantage and it grew out to 15-9 thanks to a pair of kills by Hayes Costner and a Chase Holdren ace, prompting the first Sage Hill timeout of the contest.
The Dons weren’t slowed down by the timeout, as Holdren continued to run a fluid offensive attack and find his talented outside hitters. On the final point of the set, he dished it off to Goligoski, who found Costner for the kill to take the 25-15 win and the 1-0 lead.
Sage Hill came out of the break with a sense of urgency and raced out to a 5-1 lead, forcing Arneson to call a timeout.
The Dons got two quick points out of the break on a Lightning miscue and an ace from Costner, but Sage Hill regained its momentum and continued to pull away to a 13-5 advantage that led to another timeout from Santa Barbara.
The Lightning continued to roll from there, dominating at the net to grow its lead out to as many as 12 points. Long Beach State commit Jackson Cryst finished off the 25-13 win with an ace to even the match at 1-1.
“We’d have momentum, and we’d lose momentum, then we’d win some momentum… (It is a) game of runs,” Arneson said.
Sage Hill carried that momentum over to the third set, as the visitors grabbed the early 4-0 lead and forced a Santa Barbara High timeout.
Following a service error by the Dons, they found themselves trailing 6-3. Benicio Duarte then came up with back-to-back kills on the outside to spark a 6-0 Santa Barbara High run with Goligoski on the service line to take a 9-6 lead.
The Dons found more of a groove as the set progressed, taking advantage of several Sage Hill miscues and coming up with timely kills to pull away and secure the 25-18 win, moving one set away from a CIF-SS title.
The fourth set began just like the previous two as the Lightning grabbed the early momentum and built a 5-1 lead.
The Dons battled back and cut the deficit to one at three different points, including 12-11. However, a kill by Cryst kicked off a 3-0 spurt to extend the Sage Hill lead to 15-11.
The Lightning held the slim advantage for the majority of the set, but Santa Barbara High made a late push with three straight points to cut the deficit to 22-20.
However, Sage Hill reconvened with a timeout and finished off the 25-20 victory to force a winner-take-all fifth set.
“I think winning game four would have been nice… but, that’s the beauty of sports, you know?” Arneson said. “Someone’s got to win and someone’s got to lose. Unfortunately, it was us tonight, but our guys should keep their heads high and feel proud of what they’ve accomplished this year.”
In set five, Sage Hill received the opening serve and took advantage with an ace followed by a kill for a quick 2-0 advantage.
That proved to be crucial, as the two sides then traded points until a back row kill by Cryst gave the Lightning a 9-7 lead and led to a Santa Barbara High timeout.
From there, Cryst took full control of the match by hammering down two kills and coming up with a clutch block down the stretch to lead his team to a 15-8 win and a CIF-SS title.
“We got off to a slow start, and it’s tough when you’re on your heels and you have to play against a really good team and offensive dominance over there on that side. [Cryst] definitely set the tone,” Arneson said.
Costner and Duarte led the Santa Barbara High offense with 12 kills apiece while both Luke Zuffelato and Kristian Dybdahl tallied seven kills. Holdren ended the day with 37 assists and 10 digs.