Girls volleyball: Newport knocks off Laguna Beach

Tony Altobelli

NEWPORT BEACH - It wasn’t pretty out there, but when the smoke

cleared, Newport Harbor High girls volleyball, led by April Ross and

Taylor Govaars, defeated visiting Laguna Beach in four games Wednesday

night.

Newport won, 15-12, 15-10, 14-16, 15-3, against the Artists.

“We have a long way to go,” Sailors Coach Dan Glenn said. “We didn’t

serve the ball very well at all tonight. But it’s still early.”

For the Sailors (2-0), ranked No. 1 in CIF Southern Section in the

Orange County Sportswriters poll, senior April Ross had 15 kills, 22

assists and six aces, while Taylor Govaars added 14 kills and Katie King

had 15 assists.

“This is definitely the teaching part of the season,” Glenn said. “We

actually didn’t play all that terrible. Laguna Beach is a very good team,

but we know we could have played better.”

Newport Harbor, last year’s state champions, showed determination in

spurts throughout the match against the eighth-ranked Artists (0-1).

In game one, with Laguna Beach leading, 12-10, Newport ripped off five

straight points; three on kills by senior Brenda Waterman, one on an ace

by senior Erin Haller and a stuff block by senior Krista Dill.

It was Laguna Beach’s first game of the season, and at times, it

looked like it. Newport took advantage of Artists’ miscues in game two to

win 15-10.

It looked like the Sailors were going to close out the match, serving

and leading in game three, 14-7.

That quickly changed as Laguna Beach livened up, scoring the next nine

points to steal game three, 16-14.

Laruelee Neptune had three of her team-high 13 kills and Maggie

Mallarian’s jump-served her way to two of her three aces in that stretch.

“There really wasn’t much to say after that game,” Glenn said. “We had

three of our seniors miss their serves. It was a time to put some

ownership on the players in that situation.”

Glenn also had a good reason for not calling timeout during the final

stages of that game.

“It wouldn’t have been too positive of a huddle,” he said with a smile

afterwards.

Perhaps the biggest bright spot came in game four for the Sailors, as

they rebounded from that game-three setback and followed up with a

convincing 15-3 win to close out the match.

In that game the seniors stepped it up a notch, led by Dill, Ross,

Erin Haller and Andrea Schutz.

“We showed a lot of heart in that game,” Glenn said. “It was nice to

see us respond like that.”

Next up for the Sailors is the Dave Mohs Memorial Tournament this

weekend, which will be played at Newport Harbor and Edison high schools.

“The biggest thing to pick up in the early part of the season is our

timing,” Glenn said. “We have people playing in different spots and it’s

a whole different team from last year. We had to learn at this stage last

year, so we’ll be OK. No time to panic.”