Sage Hill becomes super power

The small school captured two CIF titles during the fall and had stellar years in other sports.Don’t look now, but Sage Hill School, in its sixth year, is becoming a small-school sports power.

The Lightning won their first two CIF Southern Section titles within three days as the girls’ volleyball team won the Division IV-A championship and the girls’ tennis team won the Division V crown.

And that came as the Sage Hill boys’ and girls’ cross country teams made it to the state meet, the Lightning football team reached the CIF quarterfinals and the boys’ water polo team reached the playoffs as a freelance team.

“We have kind of come of age,” Sage Hill Athletic Director Nate Miller said. “But it hasn’t been overnight. It’s taken a lot of patience.”

In the beginning, winning was far from everyone’s minds. Fielding teams was the biggest battle.

“We had eight kids,” Sage Hill football coach Tom Monarch said. “We had to practice at Harbor Day School during the summer.”

Most of the kids Monarch received had little or no football experience, so he had to start with the fundamentals.

“It’s basically like teaching Eskimos how to surf,” he said.

Sage Hill ended up with 15 players on its first football team -- a junior-varsity team with freshmen and sophomores. When the team moved from Harbor Day to the Sage Hill campus, players would practice amid the noise of construction as the football field was being completed.

The turnout for the football program has increased every year. The Lightning went 4-15 their first two years on the varsity level before their breakthrough 2004 season, when they went 7-4 and reached the CIF playoffs for the first time.

“I think the turning point was the Capistrano Valley Christian game last year,” Monarch said. “We won, 24-12. They had beaten St. Margaret’s and were in a position to win our league. We upset them. I think that broke the ice for us.”

This season, the Lightning went 9-2, reaching the CIF Division XIII quarterfinals.

“I’ve had these kids since they were freshmen -- they’ve been through a lot together,” Monarch said. “I told them, ‘If you work hard, commit yourself to the program, listen to the coaches and execute, the wins will come.’ Sure enough -- they did.”

The girls’ volleyball team also had humble beginnings.

“When we started, everyone had little or no experience,” said Cat Dailey, who was recently named the CIF Southern Section Division IV Co-Player of the Year. “You could see the athleticism and the potential. We didn’t have a lot of skill, but we had a lot of fun.”

Having fun turned out to be the key to getting better.

“We liked it, so people started playing club volleyball,” Dailey said.

By her junior year, Dailey felt a CIF run could be a possibility. The team went 17-7 that year and reached the CIF Division IV-A semifinals.

“The beginning or middle of my junior season is when we started to gel. Before, we didn’t have our style down, we were playing as individuals,” Dailey said. “Then we came together as a team and had some success.”

This year, Dailey and fellow seniors Vista Murphy and Haywood Wright led Sage Hill to its first-ever victory over Academy League nemesis St. Margaret’s.

The teams met again in the CIF Division IV-A finals, where Sage Hill swept St. Margaret’s.

“If you would have told me my freshmen or sophomore year that we’d win a CIF title my senior year, I would have said, ‘no way,” Dailey said.

For most of Sage Hill’s teams, this year’s success was foreshadowed by last year’s improvement.

“Last year was the turning point,” said Miller, who became Sage Hill’s athletic director the first year the school started competing in varsity sports and just finished his fourth season as the boys’ varsity cross country coach. “We were solid last year, and that led to our success this year.”

The girls’ and boys’ cross country teams reached the CIF State Division V meet this season.

No team was more dominant than the girls’ tennis team, which went wire to wire as the No. 1-ranked team in Division V and captured a CIF championship.

After going winless its first season, the girls’ tennis program started attracting more players.

The second year, the team had a winning season and made the CIF playoffs for the first time.

The third season began a trend of two to four talented newcomers arriving each year.

The last two years, Sage Hill advanced to the CIF Southern Section semifinals. This year, the team captured its first CIF title under Coach A.G. Longoria.

The addition of Ashley Adams from Japan and Erica Spivack from Atlanta to a team already loaded with talented singles players expedited Sage Hill’s success.

“Adams came in at the same level as our top two singles players, so then I basically had three No. 1 singles players,” said Longoria, the executive director of the Private Tennis Club Assn. of Orange County.

Sage Hill is known for putting academics first, which makes succeeding in athletics an even more daunting task. At the same time, school officials say they encourage their students to get involved -- not just in sports, but the arts.

“There’s definitely an emphasis put on participation,” Sage Hill Head of School Clint Wilkins said. “I’d say a third to 40% of our students are involved in a sport.”

Another reason for Sage’s athletic success is the quality and consistency of the coaching. Longoria and Monarch have been at Sage since it opened. Miller became the athletic director in the school’s second year. “Finding the very best coaches is almost everything ... ,” Wilkins said.

200512140F1LVD50No Caption20051214irgpafknKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)Sage Hill’s Ashley Adams helped the Lightning win the CIF Division V championship on Nov. 21. 20051214irgpa0knDANIEL CARAPELLOTTI / DAILY PILOT(LA)The Sage Hill School girls’ volleyball team leaps in celebration on Nov. 19 after scoring the final point to seal the school’s first CIF championship.