Boys volleyball: CdM sweeps Capo Valley

Joseph Boo

CORONA DEL MAR - Corona del Mar High’s boys volleyball team didn’t

like the fact that it had to play another Orange County team in the first

round of the CIF Southern Section Division I playoffs Friday.

And that viewpoint came from the winning team. The Sea Kings didn’t get

the short end of the deal like Capistrano Valley, which fell to host CdM,

15-9, 15-10, 15-12, Friday. They will face Highland in Tuesday’s second

round match, with the site to be determined by a coin flip.

“This was an unbelievable first round match,” CdM’s Stanford-bound senior

Kevin Hansen said. “Especially for our seed. I don’t know why we had to

play them in the first round. The CIF shafted the Orange County teams.”

Nevertheless, the Sea Kings, the No. 3 seed and the Pacific Coast League

champ, made it through the first round, sweeping highly-regarded Capo

Valley for the second time this year. What doesn’t kill CdM can only make

the Sea Kings stronger, and that’s how CdM Coach Steve Conti likes to see

it.

“This was a really good first round match for us,” he said. “Most other

teams don’t play as good a team in the first round. Capo provides a lot

of matchup problems for teams. We could have complained about this

matchup, but it worked out great. To sweep a team like this was huge for

us.”

Capo Valley didn’t live up to its billing until CdM (18-1) reached match point at 14-8. Fourteen minutes, 19 sideouts (11 right before the last

point) and four Capo Valley points later, CdM’s Alec Hanson finally got a

successful spike to wrap up the match.

Facing match point, Capo Valley’s 6-8 UCLA-bound middle blocker Paul

Johnson took over. Six of his 27 kills came at the brink of extinction,

and he also added a block and three digs.

“We have a tendency in the beginning of games to go up huge and cruise

for a little bit, but we didn’t quite finish it at the end,” Hanson said.

“There must have been 10 sideouts on that last point.”

Before the match’s last 14 minutes, the Sea Kings got off to quick starts

in all three games as Johnson was kept in check for the majority of the

match.

“I thought Hansen had a great match,” Conti said. “They might have the

best middle blocker in the county, and Kevin really neutralized him by

working the ball around the court.”

“We definitely went away from him,” Hansen said, “and I think that

frustrated them a little.”

Hansen found primary target Greg Stampley all over the court. The senior

outside hitter recorded 27 kills from the left side, right side, and a

couple from the back row. And CdM middle blocker Forrest Mack contributed

12 kills, most of them in the second and third game.

In the first game, CdM raced out to an 11-3 lead. Capo Valley (10-6) then

cut the lead to 11-9 before CdM closed out the game. Stampley had 14

kills in that first game.

The Sea Kings jumped out to a 14-5 lead in the second game. But Johnson

made four kills and two blocks to slice CdM’s lead to 14-10. But after a

Brian Gallagher kill gave CdM the ball back, Hanson closed out the

Cougars with a spike.

In the 45-minute third game, CdM had a 10-3, and then a 12-5 lead before Capo Valley closed the game down and hanged in tenaciously.

“We constantly get off to good starts,” Conti said. “But one thing we

have to get better at is closing a game out. After we got off to a great

start, we had four chances at match point. They got a little bit nervous,

but they have to play the end just like the beginning of a game.”