Oilers outlast Corona del Mar

Rick Devereux

The coastline of Corona del Mar and Huntington Beach have spectacular

beaches with extraordinary waves that ebb and flow from the sand to

the ocean.

The Division I championship match between the Corona del Mar High

boys volleyball team and Huntington Beach in the Orange County

championships at Edison High Monday was spectacular with momentum

that ebbed and flowed from one team to the other.

Even though CdM lost the best-of-three match, 25-27, 25-23, 15-10,

there was a positive feeling on the Sea Kings’ sideline.

“We played with a lot of heart throughout this whole tournament,”

Coach Steve Conti said. “There were times where we could have gotten

down, but we kept on fighting.”

There were 26 ties and 13 lead changes in the three games.

“That’s how we are,” senior Tom Welch said. “We’re little and

scrappy. We work extremely hard in practice and I think that shows in

our matches.”

The first game was a war of determination. The largest lead CdM

would enjoy was 12-9, while the Oilers’ biggest cushion was 23-20.

The Sea Kings battled back with a back-row kill by senior Kevin

Welch to make it 23-21 and Huntington’s fifth net violation of the

game closed the gap to one point. A kill by Oiler senior outside

hitter Danny Laflar gave Huntington Beach a game-point opportunity,

but a Kevin Welch kill and an illegal contact by the Oilers tied the

game at 24-24.

The Oilers retook the lead on middle blocker Rory Jones’ kill, but

CdM scored twice on Huntington hitting errors for a 26-25 advantage

and Kevin Welch won a joust for the game-winner.

The second game was as close as the first, with neither team

grabbing a lead larger than the Oilers’ 15-11 edge.

But, just as in the first game, the lead did not last long as the

Sea Kings scored on kills by Ted Slaughter and Tom Welch as well as

two hitting errors on Huntington Beach to tie the game, 15-15.

CdM eventually took leads at 22-21 and 23-22, but the Oilers

scored the final three points of the game on kills by Trey Valbuena,

Laflar and Jones.

The third game took a different tone than the first two as

Huntington scored six straight points to take a 7-2 lead. The Oilers’

passing sharpened in the final game, creating better offensive

attacks.

“We knew we fell apart in the first two games,” Huntington Beach

setter Ryan Boyce said. “We knew that if we could get our passing

together, we could beat these guys.”

When a CdM hitting error made the score 11-4, Conti called a

timeout. It looked bleak for the Sea Kings to muster any type of

sustained run, but CdM came out of the break and scored four points

to make it 11-8 and forced Huntington to call a timeout.

“Coach told us that we came too far in this tournament to lose

like this and to play with pride,” Kevin Welch said.

The three-point margin was as close as the Sea Kings could come,

but Conti was happy with the progress the team had made since last

week’s San Diego tournament of champions, where CdM finished 5-3.

“This is outstanding,” he said. “We gained a lot of valuable

experience in that tournament. I think the way we finished in San

Diego, not a lot of people thought we would do well here.”

The seesaw battle was not necessarily a question of which team had

better passing, hitting and serving.

The two teams play today at Huntington Beach in a nonleague match

at 6 p.m.

“We don’t have anything to hang our heads about,” Kevin Welch

said. “If anyone on our team is [upset] we can take it out on them in

the rematch.”

Kevin Welch, who had 10 kills and seven digs in the championship

match, was named to the all-tournament team.

Tom Welch led the Sea Kings with 13 kills and 11 digs against the

Oilers. Adam Smith finished with eight kills and seven digs while

Phil Bannon dished out 31 assists.