A young San Marcos High boys’ volleyball team came of age against rival Dos Pueblos on Tuesday night.
The Royals made clutch plays down the stretch and ground out a victory in a five set thriller 25-18, 25-19, 18-25, 23-25,16-14.
“The boys showed a lot of mettle in sticking with it when it was getting tight,” said San Marcos first-year head coach Dave Goss. “This is a very young team, and they showed resilience and character.”
San Marcos took its lumps with an extremely tough non-league schedule, including losses to perennial powerhouses Redondo, Loyola, Servite, and Los Alamitos. Goss credited the tough competition for sharpening the Royals ahead of Channel League play.
“The big takeaway we had from our preseason schedule was the level of competition,” Goss said. “We could see in our first two games tonight how crisp we looked. It showed that we had been tested and tried against some very high-level competition.”
The Royals flexed their muscle in the first two sets behind strong play from sophomore Matteo Burdick, who finished with a match-high 21 kills on 48 swings. A Burdick spike through the Dos Pueblos block gave San Marcos a 25-18 lead in set one.
The Royals clinched the set when Dos Pueblos’ dominant middle blocker Noah Grant hit long.
San Marcos took a 14-13 lead in set two on a solo block by Calvin Frisell, which sparked a 4-1 run that was capped off by a Frisell ace serve that increased the Royals’ lead to 18-14.
An ace serve by Andrew Teel clinched a 2-0 set lead for San Marcos.
Dos Pueblos came into the match with a perfect 6-0 record overall and the Chargers refused to go down without a fight.
Set three went back and forth with Dos Pueblos finally taking the lead for good, 17-16 on a spike by senior outside hitter Kawin Ramko, who finished with 14 kills.
Back-to-back kills by Wyatt Silver and Nathan Vincent increased the Dos Pueblos lead to 21-16 and Keanu Nguyen closed out the set with a spike to put the Chargers back into the match.
In set four, Dos Pueblos led 24-23 when a mishit by Dos Pueblos middle blocker Ben Wojogbe fell in to tie the match at two sets apiece.
San Marcos senior captain Ayden Welch came up big in set five beginning with a joust at the net that resulted in a point for the Royals which put them ahead 8-4. Welch followed that up with a spike through the Dos Pueblos block that gave San Maros a 10-7 lead and an ace serve that put San Marcos ahead 11-7.
But once again Dos Pueblos fought back and cut its deficit to 14-13 on a kill by Wojogbe. After a San Marcos timeout the Royals hit long to tie the score at 14 apiece.
Ultimately, errors doomed the Chargers as a net violation gave San Marcos a 15-14 lead, and a mistimed connection between the Dos Pueblos setter and middle blocker ended the match.
“Two stay locked in as 15 and 16 year olds for over two hours, keep that intensity and keep that execution is a tall order and these guys came through in the end,” Goss said. “I couldn’t be more proud.”
With the victory San Marcos improved to 2-0 in Channel League play.
You must be logged in to post a comment.