Sailors upset Chargers

GOLETA — There’s one stop the Newport Harbor High girls’ volleyball team makes when it travels to Santa Barbara to play volleyball.

The players can’t get enough of an Italian restaurant that serves greasy garlic balls. Coach Dan Glenn sets a limit for how many each player can eat before a match.

“We can only have three balls per visit,” Katey Thompson said.

The Sailors can devour as many as they want after what they pulled off at Dos Pueblos of Goleta Tuesday night.

Third-seeded Newport Harbor upset top-seeded Dos Pueblos in the CIF State Southern California Regional Division I final, 23-25, 25-16, 25-20, 18-25, 15-10.

The restaurant was still open an hour after the Sailors (32-6) qualified for the state championship. With a 145-mile trip waiting, they rode back home in a charter bus.

The next stop is UC Irvine, host of the state final. Newport Harbor will face Salinas, the Northern California Regional champ, Saturday at 7 p.m. The state championship appearance is the first for the Sailors since 1999.

Ten years later, Glenn is thrilled to be back. To return, the Sailors had to knock off another team they lost to earlier in the season.

The Sailors stormed back the same way they got through Los Alamitos to become CIF Southern Section Division I-AA champions Nov. 21.

Dos Pueblos (32-3) put up a fight, forcing a decisive fifth game. When the Division I-A champion Chargers go the distance, they’re the ones usually celebrating at the end.

Not this time.

On the same court where Newport Harbor was swept by Dos Pueblos in the semifinals of the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions on Oct. 31, the Sailors kept dancing in the tournament that matters most. They bounced up and down after eliminating the No. 5-ranked team in the country by PrepVolleyball.com.

Thompson led everyone with 25 kills and added four blocks and a service ace. The Sailors received big-time contributions from middle blocker Alex Holbrook (nine kills, five blocks), outside hitter Kirby Burnham (14 kills, 16 digs), outside hitter Maddy Brown (seven kills, nine digs), setter Cinnamon Sary (54 assists, five blocks) and libero Kelly Heenan (19 digs).

“I’m just proud of the way my kids battled, especially after losing a close first game,” Glenn said. “We never let up. I think [I] panicked more than the team.”

The Sailors had a lot of reasons to be stressed out.

Two were facing Dos Pueblos’ identical twin sisters, Carly and Sam Wopat. The seniors are headed to Stanford and they’re a lot like the university’s mascot. Their shots fall as hard as trees.

The Sailors slowed down the duo in Games 2, 3 and 5. Holbrook played a vital role along with Thompson and Sary. Thompson recorded four kills in the final game and Holbrook stuffed one shot and hammered another one down as Newport Harbor took control with a 10-7 lead.

“It’s probably the best I played all season because I’ve had a lot of trouble with blocking,” said Holbrook, a sophomore. “I really stepped up and I sealed off the net. It increased my confidence, so then I was able to hit really well.

“When we first played them [on Oct. 31], we were all extremely tired because we had about four [matches] before that week and they were all real stressful [matches] for us. I think we were all mentally exhausted.”

The Sailors might have looked worn down Tuesday night.

But punching their ticket to the CIF state final cured the pain.