Harbor struggles to close out Knights

NEWPORT BEACH — The Newport Harbor High girls’ volleyball team won at home against Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks Tuesday night. But the Sailors found out they will need to work on some areas, mainly finishing, before going deeper in the CIF Southern Section Division I-AA playoffs.

The Sailors (23-7) had trouble closing out the scrappy Knights (14-12) in its playoff opener, winning in four games, 25-19, 25-11, 21-25, 25-22.

After not being able to complete the sweep, the fourth game saw a Newport Harbor squad with a lead of 18-7 largely in part to a serving streak by Katey Thompson. The Sailors established control and looked to close it out after Thompson’s seven-point run.

But Norte Dame would not go quietly.

The Sailors’ 11-point lead was cut down to two late in the match with Norte Dame pushing to force a fifth game, making it 22-24. But Newport Harbor put an end to the surge and survived a first-round bump to get the win over Norte Dame.

“We had trouble finishing,” Newport Harbor Coach Dan Glenn said. “If we want to go on in this tournament we have to play better than that. But we play to win and that’s all you have to do right now.”

The Sailors came out strong and were the more talented team from start to finish, but made too many mistakes to come away feeling satisfied with the win. Newport committed 16 service errors throughout the match and any type of momentum the Sailors would build in the last two games would be lost after a missed serve. In the Knights’ fourth-game, 14-7 run, the Sailors committed five service errors and several missed digs late.

However, these types of mistakes appear fixable and thankfully for Newport Harbor, it was only the first round.

“We start to focus on the last point and at the end of the game we make mistakes,” senior Captain Mary Buckingham said. “We need to focus on one point at a time [and] to think about what we can do to avoid unforced errors because we are going be playing better teams from now on.”

The match had the potential to end quickly because the Sailors were a better team. They were stronger, quicker and more skilled overall, but had some visible first-round jitters. The second game featured some dominating play by the Sailors as they easily won, 25-11. But just as soon as they stepped to a level above their opponent, they stepped right back down and lost the third game, 21-25.

However, to the team’s credit, it has had to battle through some adversity. The Sailors’ senior setter Arielle Lysacek was sidelined with an ankle sprain she received in Friday’s Battle of the Bay. Her replacement was freshman Cinnamon Sary, who had a solid night in her first CIF playoff start recording 25 assists. She and her team only have one day to prepare for their next CIF match on Thursday.

The Sailors will face Capistrano Valley, which beat Simi Valley at home, 25-21, 25-16, 25-21. The site for Thursday’s match will be determined by coin flip.

“There is not a lot you can do because it goes so quickly,” Coach Glenn said. “We only have one day to prepare for the next game. We are going watch a little film and wait to see who we play next. We lived to see another day.”

Harbor is moving on to the next round in large part due to the strength of Glenn’s bench. Junior Kirby Burnham came into the match and landed a team-high 14 kills. Buckhingham and Thompson came in behind her with 10 kills each and Kelly Heenan rounded out the night’s leaders with 13 digs.