CdM falls to Loyola
For the ninth year in a row, Corona del Mar High and Los Angeles Loyola squared off in a boys’ volleyball match. Sometimes they face each other in a big tournament, in the CIF Southern Section playoffs, or in a nonleague affair.
The two sides haven’t missed each other since they played at the Best of the West Invitational in 2008. Then eight years ago, they began scheduling a nonleague contest every April. One year Loyola plays host to it and the next CdM entertains.
This time it was the Cubs’ turn to make the one-hour drive, and that’s without traffic, to play the Sea Kings. Before they arrived at CdM on Saturday afternoon, the Cubs made a stop at the ASICS America headquarters in Irvine.
“We stopped off and we did a little serve and pass at our sponsor ASICS, which was nice,” said Loyola Coach Michael Boehle, adding that his team spent about a half hour inside the state-of-the-art facility. “They had some gifts for the kids, so we handed those out and we got to serve and pass in their facility.”
The souvenir the Cubs coveted the most was 10 miles away at a different venue in Orange County. They certainly earned it at CdM.
The Cubs roared back from late deficits in the first and final sets, allowing them to exact some revenge in a 25-22, 25-21, 23-25, 25-22 win against CdM.
The matchup marked the first between Loyola and the Sea Kings since CdM swept the Cubs in the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs last May. While Boehle tried to downplay the payback factor, the Cubs almost finished CdM in three sets.
“You could just tell that they came out ready to play,” CdM senior Matt Ctvrtlik said after he and the Sea Kings struggled against Loyola’s two big middle blockers, 6-foot-10 Jack Truman and 6-8 Ian Parish. “I didn’t feel very big out there.”
It’s not often that a player towers over the 6-5 Ctvrtlik. The Harvard-bound setter and CdM succumbed to a ranked program for the fifth time this season.
Each of the Sea Kings’ setbacks have come against ranked opponents. Last month, they lost to Westlake, ranked No. 5 in Division 1 at the time, Oak Park and El Segundo, the top-ranked programs in Division 2 and 3, respectively, at the Best of the West Invitational in San Diego, and last week the Sea Kings fell to Manhattan Beach Mira Costa at the Clash of the Titans in Hawaii.
The latest ranked team, Loyola (15-2), No. 2 team in Division 1, used size and a balanced attack to knock off the No. 6 Sea Kings (17-5) for the fourth time in the last five tries.
JP Reilly led Loyola with 10 kills and Truman contributed nine kills and two solo blocks. Will Bantle and Brady Wedbush had seven kills apiece, while Parish, a UCLA commit, added five kills. All five players rallied the Cubs from a 15-8 deficit in Game 4.
Loyola went on a 10-3 run, half of the Cubs’ points came on five errors by CdM. Casey McGarry dropped in a service ace and Wedbush recorded two kills, before Parish blocked a shot and hammered a kill to even things up at 18-18.
Sophomore Brandon Browning put the Sea Kings ahead with a kill, but Will Hunter misfired wide on CdM’s next chance to extend its lead, enabling the Cubs to tie it at 19-19. Kevin Kobrine, another sophomore, broke the tie with one of his seven kills, and then a service error by Kobrine evened things up.
Kobrine’s older brother, Sam, a senior heading to UCLA, smashed a back-row shot long. The Cubs took a 21-20 lead, their first advantage in the fourth set since it was up, 2-1.
The error helped Loyola close things out on a 6-2 run. Davis Boehle set Truman up for a kill, and then it was McGarry’s turn to find Truman and his off-speed shot was successful.
Those three players — Boehle, Truman and McGarry — are UC Santa Barbara-bound seniors. After Reilly’s overpass kill put Loyola at match point, the tallest future Gaucho, Truman, turned away outside hitter Sam Kobrine, who led CdM with 18 kills, to go with six digs and three blocks.
The Cubs seemed to take advantage of some inexperienced CdM players down the stretch of sets. The Sea Kings used three sophomores in their lineup, Browning, Kevin Kobrine and Patrick Paragas, to Loyola’s none.
“We had leads in the three sets that we lost,” said CdM Coach Steve Conti, adding that his sophomores have played in enough big matches. “We just get in stretches where we make unforced errors. We’re making them in bunches. There’s no lead that’s too big [for us] against some of the good teams in this division, where you can kind of do that, give them a chance to get back in and get that momentum.
“We need to learn that if guys aren’t mentally ready to come out and play, you know, you’re going to get to a playoff match on the road somewhere and possibly your season is going to end.”
The path CdM has taken in the postseason the past two years has led it to Loyola, each time in the semifinals. Last year, the Sea Kings broke through and reached the section finale in the top division for the first time since 2000.
Three starters on each team are back from last year’s semifinal, CdM’s Ctvrtlik, Sam Kobrine and Will Hunter, and Davis Boehle, McGarry and Truman for Loyola. Unlike last year, when Huntington Beach thrashed everyone on the way to its third straight section title, Conti and Michael Boehle said there are a handful of teams that can win it all this season.
Boehle made sure to tell his Cubs that the Sea Kings are one of those teams.
“We’re playing a team that’s capable of winning CIF,” said Boehle, whose team’s two losses have come against two other section title contenders, Newport Harbor and Mira Costa, ranked No. 1 and 5, respectively. “They’re very good. They’re young just like us. They’re going to be well prepared. We got them twice [during the regular season] last year and they got us when it counted [in the playoffs]. No one remembers the times that we beat them [in the regular season, but they remember] the last time that they beat us [in the semis]. We needed this. We needed a win like this to get us over the hump.
“I enjoy coming down here to play. [CdM is] such a class-act program that Steve runs. His guys are always so genuine and so cool. It’s a great rivalry.”
