CdM wins Battle of the Bay

Chris Yemma

It wouldn’t have been a Newport Harbor High vs. Corona del Mar girls

volleyball match if it didn’t go down to five games, with everyone in

the building on the edge of their seats or standing, and with

synchronized screams of jubilation or gasps of grief after every

point.

And in the fifth game, with the home crowd on their feet, yelling

at the top of their lungs while trying to will their team to a win,

Corona del Mar pulled out a thriller Friday night, defeating visiting

Back Bay rival Newport Harbor, 27-25, 18-25, 25-18, 20-25, 15-8.

“I’ve been coaching here for nine years,” CdM Coach Bill

Christiansen said. “And I can’t remember a time when these two teams

played and one of them actually swept the other in three [games].”

With the Sea Kings (22-5, 9-1 in league) dispatching the Sailors,

a 2 1/2 -year Newport winning streak over CdM was ended, and the Sea

King seniors walked off the court basking in the glory of defeating

their biggest rival in their last year of high school volleyball.

“Of all the games we played, I will remember this one the most in

my high school volleyball career,” said senior Lindsey Ensign, who

had the match-winning kill that sent the crowd into a frenzy. “When

they set that last one up for me, I had no doubt I was going to put

the ball down. But anyone could have done it, I was lucky enough to

have it.”

After the Sailors went up, 3-1, in the fifth game with two Kiley

Hall kills and a Taryn Tarnutzer tip, the Sea Kings rallied and

scored six straight points to go up, 8-3, forcing Sailor Coach Dan

Glenn to call a timeout.

The timeout didn’t help slow CdM’s momentum, and a couple of

unforced Sailor errors later, the score was 14-7 Sea Kings. Hall

slammed one last kill home to make it 14-8, but then Ensign worked

her magic, and sent the Sailors home.

“It’s always a big game against Newport,” Christiansen said. “This

rivalry goes back 35, 40 years. It’s like a USC-UCLA rivalry.”

Ensign led the Sea Kings with 17 kills and 23 digs, while senior

Jordan Smith and senior Traci Lawson added 10 kills apiece. Lawson

also had 20 assists.

Sailors’ senior captain Hall, playing in her last regular-season

match, led the match with 27 kills. Coco Yokoyama had 10 kills,

Tarnutzer had five and Hadley Burnham had two for the Sailors, who

finished their regular season 12-12, 8-2.

Despite being a nonleague matchup, the Newport Harbor-Corona del

Mar battles are for more than rankings, standings or records. Both

schools look at it as one of, if not the, biggest matchup all season.

And both schools are fighting for something extremely important.

“With both sides always being competitive, bragging rights are

involved here,” Glenn said before the match. “But it’s always a good,

competitive game. One of the reasons I’m still coaching is to play

Corona.”