Estancia shares Golden West League crown

Barry Faulkner

The Estancia High boys volleyball team lost all three games at Ocean

View High, as well as the right to call itself exclusive champion of

the Golden West League.

But while her team sat stunned and saddened in the aftermath,

Eagles Coach Tracey Heims said it may turn out to be the best thing

that could have happened.

“I’m still so proud of my team,” Heims said. “To be playing for a

league championship after going 0-10 in [the Pacific Coast League]

last year, is a great accomplishment. And, if something like this was

going to happen, I’d rather take a loss now than in the [CIF Southern

Section Division III] playoffs. This loss is going to help us in

practice. We need to use this to build from.”

Estancia (26-10, 11-1 in league), ranked No. 3 in CIF Division

III, built a 10-1 lead in the opening game against the Seahawks

(17-5, 11-1), ranked No. 5 in CIF Division III.

But, relying on offensive balance, superior blocking, and

demonstrative emotion, Ocean View, now co-champion of the league for

the third straight season, overwhemled the visitors to take a 15-12,

15-6, 15-9 decision.

Estancia, by virtue of a 73-68 advantage in the schools’ two

league meetings (the Eagles swept, 15-5, 16-14, 15-4 April 9), gets

the league’s No. 1 postseason berth.

It remains to be seen whether the lopsided loss will cost

Estancia, which won its last league title in 1984, a top-four seed

when playoff pairings are announced Monday.

While the tide turned in the first game, then continued to surge

in Ocean View’s favor the rest of the match, the Seahawks hollered,

hugged, high-fived, even head-butted one another on the court.

Conversely, the Eagles often leaned, flat-footed, into passing

attempts, let their own passes fall between themselves, and shot

puzzled looks toward their bench as their unbeaten league run

crumbled into a co-title.

“We’ve seen this happen before,” Heims said of her team’s obvious

lack of energy. “With us, sometimes, it comes down to whether or not

we come to play.”

Heims was at a loss to explain why the Eagles lacked fire in,

arguably, their biggest match of the season.

Heims, however, was quick to credit the energy on the other side

of the net.

“[The Seahawks] were fired up,” she said. “They had nothing to

lose and everything to gain and they played like it. We stepped down

[after the 10-1 first-game lead] and we never got up.”

Ocean View Coach Jimmy Harris was gratified by his team’s

performance.

“We had much more determination in our defense; much more

confidence in our blocking,” Harris said. “We’ve been working on that

a lot in practice and we did a great job of taking that into the

match. It was exciting to see us play that well, especially on the

verge of the playoffs and against a team that is that well-coached

and has two of the best three players in this league [juniors Kris

Hartwell and Josh Kornegay].”

Kornegay led the Eagles with 15 kills, while Hartwell added seven

kills and 16 digs. Estancia sophomore setter Trevor Holmes posted 30

assists and 13 digs, but was often frustrated by his teammates’ lack

of passing accuracy.

Junior Brad Larsen had seven kills for the Eagles, while junior

Scott Sankey earned five of his six kills in the final game, in which

the visitors rallied from an 11-3 deficit to within 12-9, before

Ocean View closed them out.

Ocean View senior captain Justin Roth spearheaded the victory.

Splitting time between hitting and setting, he had a team-high 12

kills, while adding two stuff blocks and four ace serves.

The Seahawks had nine stuff blocks to the Eagles’ two and

Estancia’s 12 service errors were also costly.

Heims said she would interject some perspective with her players.

“This is the end of the world for these guys [nodding to her

dejected players] and that’s good,” Heims said. “But we still have so

many opportunities this season. It would have been nice to sweep

everyone, but I want our guys to look more long term.”