Huntington Beach drops five-set thriller, falls into tie for first place with Los Alamitos
Taylor Ponchak didn’t have her most effective game, but twice her kills were able to draw Huntington Beach even in a pivotal match with Los Alamitos.
The heroics became necessary as the Oilers repeatedly fell behind at the beginning of sets. The abbreviated fifth was no different, with the home team running out of time to respond.
When Ronni Lyons’ spike hit the floor, she clapped her hands to her face in disbelief, as Los Alamitos edged Huntington Beach 25-15, 21-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-11 on Thursday to pull the Griffins even with the Oilers for the Sunset League girls’ volleyball title with one match remaining.
“I just think I’m so proud of my team right now,” said Lyons, who finished with a dozen kills and three service aces. “Every year, Huntington’s always defeated us, and I feel like we really practiced hard this year to get on top and work as a team.”
Huntington Beach (29-4, 10-1 in the Sunset League) closes the regular season on Tuesday at Corona del Mar (12-20, 3-8). Los Alamitos (30-6, 10-1) visits Fountain Valley (13-15, 0-11) in its league finale.
Outside hitters Ellie Esko and Addison Williams each contributed 19 kills. Ponchak had 12 kills and four block assists, but the trio combined for 16 hitting errors — each with at least five.
“It really came down to little things,” Huntington Beach coach Craig Pazanti said. “Digging an out ball, not scoring on the overpass at 13-11. … Give them credit. They did a really good job. The game plan was pretty apparent on what they were trying to do. They blocked a bunch of balls tonight, and I think a lot of that had to do with we just didn’t receive the ball very well in serve receive after the first set.
“The first set, we received the ball pretty well. They were doing a pretty good job of being dialed in on our attackers, but then as we got out of system, we became a little bit more predictable. We made a few more errors than we normally do, and give them credit for that.”
Heading into the week, Huntington Beach was ranked No. 3 and Los Alamitos No. 6 in the CIF Southern Section’s power ratings, which the section plans to use to place teams in playoff divisions.
Los Alamitos produced 13 blocks as a team, led by five total blocks from Audrey Belikoff. Katy Foley had 22 kills and six block assists, and Charlotte Hall added five block assists.
Ashley Repetti, who finished with 22 kills and two aces, was a tone-setter for the Griffins, supplying five kills and all three of her block assists in a dominant first set. A large group of Los Alamitos students camped behind their team’s bench also made their voices heard.
“There’s no other feeling that beats that,” Repetti said of likely earning a share of the league title. “We’ve been playing them for the past three years that I’ve been here, and we haven’t been able to take them down yet. We know that we could be the better team, we had the good pieces there, and we just showed up tonight — and we had a lot of support with all of our athletics here, as well, and I think that helped with our momentum — and we just took care of business.”
Tori Esko dished out 46 assists for Huntington Beach, which began the season with a 16-game winning streak and earned a five-set win at Los Alamitos on Sept. 16. Charlie Lucky-Mitchell had three kills and 3½ total blocks for the Oilers.
“This is my last season playing indoor, so I think it’s really important to play every point like it might be my last point,” said Ponchak, who is committed to Stanford for beach volleyball. “When we have our last game, it will be a very hard time, but if we ended here, I’m very satisfied with this indoor team and my indoor career.”
Huntington Beach libero Olivia Foye (19 digs) is also committed to the Princeton women’s volleyball program.
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