Mustangs complete a U-turn

In a little more than 13 months, the watchword for the Costa Mesa

High girls volleyball program has transformed from turnover to

turnaround.

Turnover in the coaching ranks helped generate nearly as many

headlines as victories since Yvette Ybarra resigned after the 1998

season, ending a two-year run that produced two at-large berths into

the CIF Southern Section playoffs. The back-to-back postseason

appearances were the Mustangs’ first since 1991 and when Ybarra

arrived, the program has lost 26 straight matches.

Four coaches came and went in the next two seasons, a couple of

whom never coached a match, as the program floundered to the point

where finding anyone to provide information for a preseason preview

became problematic. It is, after all, tough to describe players

you’ve only just met.

Salladin filled the need for a coach after practice had begun last

season, allowing Joe Havens, the school’s longtime tennis coach who

had volunteered to keep the program from folding until a coach was

found, to put away his volleyball instruction books and merely watch

his daughter Jackie compete.

Salladin, who played at Edison High and Azusa Pacific University,

had just returned from New Jersey, where her husband had been

attending law school, and was hopeful of catching on as a varsity

assistant or, perhaps, a lower-level prep coach.

Instead, she inherited an athletic group of varsity Mustangs with,

most would admit, lower-level volleyball skills.

“Some of the girls had not played volleyball in nine months,”

Salladin recalled of her first workouts. But, even though the

Mustangs struggled through last season, finishing 2-12, 2-8 in the

Pacific Coast League, Salladin was eager to see how an offseason

training regimen could expedite the team’s progress.

“I knew, even last year, I had some amazing athletes, who had been

playing sports (mostly soccer) for a long time,” she said. “I saw a

lot of potential.”

She drilled players in fundamentals in sixth-period workouts last

spring and continued to polish some rough edges in the summer,

anticipating a much friendlier competitive environment with the

school’s shift to the Golden West League.

After Friday’s crucial 6-15, 15-5, 16-14, 15-11 league win over

visiting Ocean View, the Mustangs are 8-2, 7-0 in league. With just

five league matches remaining, they are two matches ahead of the

Seahawks in the league standings and appear poised to claim the

program’s first league title.

Senior middle blocker Sharon Day, the defending CIF State high

jump champion and a decorated soccer standout, has been the team’s

leading weapon.

“If I had to pick out a star, it would be Sharon,” Salladin said.

“She’s such a gifted athlete and she jumps so high, she has the

ability to dominate in the middle. She gets the majority of our kills

every single match.”

The ball control necessary to feature a middle hitter has also

been there and sophomore setters Jenny Sparks and Jackie Havens have

been distributing those quality passes.

Senior middle blocker Kristen Bagwell and senior outside hitter

Devin Denman, both of whom have also been standouts for the soccer

team for years, are joined in the starting lineup by outside hitter

Emily Abbott.

Other than Friday’s thrilling victory, Santa Ana was the only

league opponent to win a game off the Mustangs, who are anxious to

see how they stack up against future Division III-A playoff foes.

“I’m very excited about this team,” said Salladin, a walk-on who

has the same enthusiasm about extending her tenure with the Mustangs.

“I would love to stay at Costa Mesa,” she said. “I love the school

and I love the support from the athletic department. It’s a great

place to coach and I’ve got five returners next year I’m really

excited about.”

*

The Newport Harbor High girls volleyball team, ranked No.1 in CIF

Division II-AA, is hoping to turn things around when it visits Sea

View League rival Aliso Niguel Thursday at 3:15 p.m.

Coach Dan Glenn’s Sailors (15-6, 3-1 in league heading into

Tuesday’s Sea View clash with Foothill) were stunned, 15-4, 15-10,

14-16, 12-15, 12-15, by the Wolverines, Oct. 9 at home.

Glenn, whose squad just dropped 3 of 4 matches at the Santa

Barbara Tournament of Champions, blames himself for the first Aliso

loss. He said, after winning the first two games, he began

experimenting with personnel and “forgot we were playing a match.”

Glenn, an outspoken critic of CIF Southern Section rules that

prohibit schools from “playing up,” in the playoffs against schools

with larger enrollments, was disappointed when the Sailors missed the

Division I enrollment cutoff by 14 students.

That disappointment was mollified by a potential state playoff

showdown against nationally ranked St. Francis High of Mountain View,

which had won four of the last five state Division II titles,

including the last two. But Glenn said St. Francis, unrestricted by

Central Coast Section rules, has elected to “play up” in Division I

this year.

“There’s still plenty of good teams for us to play in this

division,” Glenn said. “We’re good, but we have to be there 100%

mentally every day.”

*

Paul Kirby, who resigned as Estancia High’s girls basketball coach

after last season, has resurfaced as a varisty assistant at Marina.

Kirby, as well as former Estancia junior varsity girls coach Carlito

Butalid with both assist Vikings Coach Butch Fredlow, with whom Kirby

played at Ocean View High.

*

Construction on Beckman High in Tustin has begun and the eighth

member of the Golden West League is scheduled to open in September of

2004, halfway through the current four-year cycle.

Since new schools typically don’t field varsity teams their first

year of existence and seldom have a senior class until their third

year, this means the new school will have virtually no competitive

impact at the varsity level in the Golden West League, before the

releaguing process begins anew.

This is good news for Golden West representatives Costa Mesa and

Estancia, though it could mean Beckman will be rubber-stamped for a

return to the Golden West League.