Boys’ Volleyball: No Rocky start this year for Tars

The start to Rocky Ciarelli’s second year at the helm of the Newport Harbor High boys’ volleyball team is turning out a lot better than his first.

He’s enjoying success early on, and he gets to while coaching his nephew, Dayne Chalmers.

Chalmers is a freshman and he’s starting and contributing.

The standout finished with seven kills and six digs, helping the host Sailors defeat Capistrano Valley, 25-12, 25-19, 22-25, 25-17, on Tuesday and stay undefeated through the first three matches.

Chalmers is one of six underclassmen on the team. Two other youngsters Ciarelli is counting on are sophomores Cole Pender and Ethan Talley.

The Sailors are young, as only one senior, opposite Cannon Williams, is on the team.

“It’s good because we’re playing well,” Ciarelli said of the youth, which didn’t stand in the way of the Sailors winning at Laguna Beach, ranked No. 2 in the CIF Southern Section Division 2 preseason poll, and San Clemente, ranked No. 8 in Division 1, last week. “It can be tough sometimes without seniors. I think we got a good team, so we can kind of work through some of those leadership issues with team leadership.”

A year ago, it took Newport Harbor a bit to get going. The Sailors dropped their first four contests before getting Ciarelli his first win as Newport Harbor’s coach.

Ciarelli has been around, winning more than 500 matches during his 24 years in charge of Huntington Beach, to know what kind of talent he has with the Sailors. Newport Harbor, which went 12-13 overall, shared second place in the Sunset League at 7-3, and exited the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs last year, is ranked No. 6 in Division 1 this year.

Chalmers is one of the reasons why there is a lot of optimism at Newport Harbor. Before high school, he led the Balboa Bay Volleyball Club ASICS team to the boys’ 14-and-under open division title at the USA Volleyball Junior National Championships last July.

“He does a good job for a freshman,” Ciarelli said of his nephew, who’s 6-foot-3. “He passed the ball well today and he plays good defense. He’s smart hitting-wise. Being a freshman, you know, it’s tough. You’re getting used to playing against older kids. He’s doing a good job.”

Pender was in Chalmers’ shoes last year as a freshman. He too was coming off a USA Volleyball Junior National Championship in the open division before he made an impact with the Sailors.

Pender, a first-team All-Sunset League outside hitter last year, likes what he has seen so far from Chalmers.

“He’s a good player, a good addition,” Pender said. “Now we have depth [on] our team. Last year we kind of lacked the depth. This year we’re solid at every position.”

Pender led the way against Capistrano Valley, No. 5 in Division 2, recording 17 kills, six digs and four service aces. Other standouts for the Sailors included Landon Monroe, who had 14 assists, nine kills, three aces and one dig, and Carlos Rivera (15 assists, eight aces and three digs).

Ciarelli said Rivera, a junior, used to play at Marina. Rivera displayed his lethal jump serve against Capistrano Valley and it struggled with it all night. The Cougars lost for the third time to a Sunset League team, the other two were Huntington Beach and Los Alamitos.

Rivera opened Game 2 with a couple of booming serves, allowing Newport Harbor to go ahead, 3-0. Later in the set, Pender unleashed his serve, producing three aces, one knocked down a Capistrano Valley player on his butt.

As a team, Newport Harbor totaled 18 aces. The Sailors hope to get a test on Wednesday, when they play host to Dana Hills (6-1) at 5:45 p.m.

This is a busy week for the Sailors, who travel to the two-day Best of the West Invitational in San Diego on Friday. Their first pool-play match is against Chula Vista Otay Ranch at 4 p.m, followed up by contests against St. John Bosco at 6 p.m. and Clovis Buchanan at 8 p.m.

“I think we got a shot to win it,” Pender said of the Best of the West, the tournament in which Newport Harbor went 3-3 and finished tied for 13th place last year. “We can definitely win any game we play. We’re a team. Last year, it was always up in the air, but this year we can beat any team.”