Tars’ Glenn still tinkering

NEWPORT BEACH — These early season matches before the start of league play are meant for tinkering.

And Newport Harbor High Coach Dan Glenn likes to schedule tougher opponents at this time of year because they facilitate the process, making for better test subjects for his girls’ volleyball team.

In Newport Harbor’s first best-of-five match Tuesday night, Glenn tested different aspects of his Sailors team on Huntington Beach. He made sure all of his players had the opportunity to play and experimented with opposite hitter Megan Munce at setter for the first two games.

The Sailors got the victory, 22-25, 28-26, 25-19, 25-22, in the nonleague home match.

Juniors Alesha Young and Munce had 20 assists each.

Katie Wells led the hosts with 13 kills, Megan Toman and Munce had 11 apiece, Mary Buckingham added 10, and Alex Penewell had eight.

Cassidy Gainer led with 14 digs and Munce had 11.

But what Glenn learned about his team, which improved to 4-1, was more important than the final result.

Glenn will need to pull out the wrench and tighten up the Sailors’ serving before they face Great Oak Sept. 26. Newport Harbor made 21 service errors, accounting for almost a quarter of the Oilers’ points.

“I can’t remember a time when we missed 21 serves,” Glenn said. “It was a long time ago, definitely before rally scoring.”

Glenn added that it could have just been a case of one person missing a serve and then it worked its way around the team like a contagion.

Newport Harbor has a heightened focus on preparation for league play after moving this year into the Sunset League, which has Esperanza and Los Alamitos, the defending CIF Southern Section Division I-AA and I-A champions respectively.

“We can’t beat those teams if we do that,” Glenn said. “Fortunately we have two weeks to prepare.”

The league opener for the Sailors is Oct. 3 against Edison. In between now and then, Newport Harbor will also play Laguna Beach, the top ranked team in Division II-AA.

But Tuesday night’s opponent, Huntington Beach, made for the perfect team to face at this stage of the season, because the Oilers’ talent lied in keeping the ball in play. The constant barrage of digs led to nine unforced errors in each of the first two games for the Sailors.

“We just have to limit our unforced errors,” Glenn said. “We can’t beat those teams playing like that.”

It was late in the second game where Newport Harbor turned the tide. Trailing, 26-25, Newport Harbor faced a game point and the possibility of going down two games to none. But the Sailors reeled off three straight points — taking the lead for the first time since 10-9 — to win the game.

Toman’s kill ignited the rally.

“We started out not so well, but we finished out strong,” Toman said. “We did a good job of coming back.”

In the third game the left-handed Munce switched to her natural position on the right side and Young came in to set. With Munce now solely concentrating on hitting, the Sailors offense became more explosive. Munce was happy to be back on the hitting end of the attack.

“We did OK,” Munce said. “We were adjusting to people in new positions.”

The Sailors were tied, 15-15, when Munce’s kill started a 5-1 run.

In the fourth game, three straight Munce kills put the Tars up, 7-2, and they never looked back.

Munce and Toman both said they were excited to face the competition in the Sunset League.

“New competition, new teams, Munce said. “It’s going to take hard work and better practices. Hopefully our hard work will pay off.”