Sage Hill still is learning

NEWPORT COAST — On a boys’ volleyball team that has freshmen and sophomores as five of its six starters, it’s probably normal to experience some growing pains.

Sage Hill School learned that the hard way Tuesday night, dropping a 25-19, 25-18, 25-18 nonleague match against University High at Sage Hill.

The Lightning (5-3), ranked No. 5 in the most recent CIF Southern Section Division V coaches’ poll, have shown flashes this year, and were coming off an impressive five-game win against San Marino on Friday.

But the team is not only young, but relatively inexperienced, with only junior Carl Hillgren and sophomore Bayle Smith as varsity returners from last season.

Against University (2-2), a team with five seniors compared to Sage Hill’s one, that inexperience took the form of poor passing. In turn, the passing issues helped set up Trojans’ middle blockers Sterling Holyoake and Danny Miede for big blocks all night long.

“They were a good blocking team, a little bigger than we’re used to,” Sage Hill Coach Dan Thomassen said. “We really haven’t practiced enough hitting against big blocks, so we’ll be working on that. Mainly, it was our serving and passing. Those are usually strengths for us, and we didn’t put the ball where we wanted it [this match].

“The good thing is that we know what we need to work on.”

Sage Hill did battle all match long, tying up the first game, 16-16, on the first of three Smith service aces. But, after Holyoake responded with a kill, the Lightning committed a hitting error.

Sage Hill would pull within 19-18 on Hillgren’s kill, but University ended the game on a 6-1 run.

“We weren’t really coordinated that well as a team tonight,” Hillgren said.

University sped out to a 4-0 lead in Game 2, before the Lightning pulled within 16-14, on consecutive kills by Smith. But University went on another 4-0 run — helped by three consecutive Sage Hill hitting errors — and the Lightning wouldn’t challenge again.

“Our passing didn’t go that well today,” said Smith, who had a team-high 13 kills. “That left their blockers solid on every hit we had. There were no holes, so we couldn’t really use their block to our advantage.”

Sage Hill took its first lead of the match, at 4-3 in Game 3, on a kill from freshman Joey Booth. But then the Trojans went on a 9-1 run, forcing a Lightning timeout and ending the match soon after.

Freshman libero Mattias Russo-Larsson had a team-high 15 digs for the Lightning, who have still impressed their first-year coach in the early season.

“I’ve been really happy, even with tonight being a little bump in the road,” Thomassen said. “It’s early, but so far it’s been a great start for us.”

The Lightning play host to Calvary Chapel of Santa Ana on Thursday, and begin Academy League play at Brethren Christian on Friday.

The Warriors are the defending league champions.

“They graduated a lot of people, too,” Smith said. “Hopefully, we’ll put up a good fight.”