Both the Bishop Union and Lone Pine high school volleyball teams traveled Tuesday night for first-round action in the CIF-SS Toyota Girls Volleyball Championships, each team playing very well in 5-game losses.

The Broncos played at Upland Christian in a Division 4A match, while Lone Pine played at No. 3 seed Victor Valley Christian in Division 5AA.

Following are stories emailed to Sierra Wave from Bishop coach Keith Rainville and Lone Pine coach Mel Joseph.

BISHOP VS. UPLAND CHRISTIAN

(Bronco scores listed first) 25-22, 26-24, 18-25, 20-25, 9-15

The girls played and absolutely outstanding match and were so close to bringing a home game back to Bishop. We’ve had single games this season where we played near our potential but not more than one game per match. This match all five of our games were at our maximum or beyond. Upland Christian showed incredible poise and never cracked. Our setters did an awesome job dealing with the sticky volleyballs with their sets- very challenging to go from bone dry air to sticky wet.

We served hard and accurately, hit the ball well, had a good block to slow down their attack- and most of all played incredible team defense. We touched almost everything they spiked, ran down crazy digs and sent them over and made Upland work for every point.

For the match we served over 90%, had very few hitting errors or passing errors. The girls executed our game plan to a tee, did everything right and just got beat by a strong team. I was incredibly proud of how sharp they played, how hard they battled and how cohesively the girls played.

If we can thank Debbie Brown- my assistant coach/team statistician for all her hard work. Cheryl Mikulicicich for a great JV season- Fred Rowe and Pietra Beihl for their help scorekeeping at home games- and new AD Tami Matteson and Principal Chris Culow for their support- also the BUHS office gals

Game one- All night long our serving was excellent- the thick air and humidity allowed our servers to really drive hard serves at them without worrying about serving long. We jumped out to a 7-3 lead behind strong serves by and Megan Mather and Kelsea Galvin, and were able to hold a small lead for the rest of the game. Upland had two 6-foot middle hitters who could jump and nail the ball- but our defensive scheme is effective againt that attack and Kelsea Galvin, Mather, and Carlee Todd did a great job of digging hard-driven spikes at them. Jenna Sliger led us with 3 kills and 2 blocks in game one.

Game two- Upland started to pass our serves a little better and get their hitters better sets. We had the score was never more than 4 points apart. Ely Muro served a pair of aces in game two and gave us another early lead. Muro also led us with 3 kills in the game. Jenna SLiger had 2 blocks in game two. Game was tied at 18, 21, 22. Upland took a 24-23 lead on us but our girls responded with a great bump set spike to sideout and tie the game at 24. Mather served two nasty knuckleballs to win the game for us.

Game three- I was really impressed that at no point did Upland start to panic and yell at each other or start making errors. The kept in their system kept hitting hard at us and picked up their serving as tha match went on. Our girls did everything they could jumping out early to put all the pressure on them, but Upland responded. They took an early lead in G3 on good serves and we tried playing catchup and closed to 11-14, but lost 18-25.

Game four decided the match- Upland had good depth and their hitters were getting breathers. Sliger, Emma Oschrin and Muro were matching thier height by jumping with them, and as the match wore on height started to gain the advantage. In game four we threw everything at them- Ely Muro led us with 4 kills in game four, and good serving by Jenna Sliger paced us to an 11-5 lead. Their coach called a timeout and his team regained its composure and hit another gear. We won a one-minute rally to take a 12-9 lead- it was the longest rally I’ve seen that featured bump, set, spike, dig volleyball- Each team was pounding the ball and digging it. Crazy point and Muro killed deep down the line at the end. Still Upland wouldn;’t give- they nailed a spike on the next point and after trading points, put on a good service run to win game four 25-20.

Game five. We trailed by a couple of points the whole game. Upland just kept getting stronger and their hitters were very accurate and tall. All girls were all over the floorand fought of an incredible match point by sheer effort and willpower.

Stat Totals

Jenna Sliger- 8 kills, 5 blocks, 3 aces

Ely Muro- 9 kills, 1 block, 6 aces

Megan Mather- 11 assists, 4 aces, 1 kill- 10 digs

Kelsea Galvin- led the team in bruises, summersalts, bruised on her arms, and belly flop dives for digs- 27 digs on hard driven balls, 38 serve recieves and 5 aces

Carlee Todd- 5 assists, 1 aces, 2 kills, and great court prescence- running all over to set tough digs

Emma Oschrin- 1 aces, 1 kills- about 10 deflections (blocks are when we stuff the ball, deflection we don’t track officially but are when our blockers touch the ball and keep it alive for our defense to dig- she really slowed their hitters down by touching a lot of spikes and allowing us to run the ball down and keep it alive)

Ti-ah-ni Stone- 2 kills, and she dug Upland’s tips at the net very effectively- 6 digs

 

CIF 1St Round Lone Pine @ Victor Valley Christian

Varsity Scores: 12-25, 19-25, 25-17, 25-23, 17-19

Overall Record: 15-10

DML: 4-6

Lone Pine travelled to Victor Valley Christian on Tuesday for the CIF Division V-AA first round playoffs and the Lady Eagles came within two match points in a marathon fifth game from upsetting the No. 3-ranked Lady Royals.

Lone Pine started slow going down two games to none, but just as VVC thought they would complete a three-game, first-round sweep, Lone Pine dug deep and got its defense going and won games three and four, setting up the fifth and final game losing a heartbreaker 17-19.

We showed this division that our at-large entry into these playoffs was no fluke, we deserved to be there. Tonight was a moral victory that showed we can play with anyone and also just how good this team is; the VVC players, coaches and fans all agreed.

 

Stats

Junior-Nora Sellberg (outside hitter) 810/11 serving, 2 aces, 12 kills, 2 blocks and 6 digs.

Senior-Samantha Gordon (opposite hitter) 5 kills and 3 blocks.

Senior-Kirsten Allen (middle hitter) 18/18 serving, 3 aces, 11 kills, 12 blocks and 14 digs.

Senior-Celia Acevedo (outside hitter)- 4 kills and 12 digs.

Junior-Kady Francone (middle hitter) 8 blocks .

Junior-Courtnie Hunter (setter) – 22/24 serving, 3 aces, 8 blocks, 27 assists and 7 digs.

Junior-Denise Acevedo (outside hitter)- 13/14 serving and 8 digs.

Senior-Alisha Leslie (defensive specialist) 100% serving and 4 digs (suffered an ankle injury in game 1 and was unable to play the rest of the match).

Sophomore-Nicole Tweedy (middle blocker brought up from JV) 2 kills, 11 blocks and 2 digs.

Senior- Miriam Duran (defensive specialist) 9/12 serving and 4 digs.

Senior- Lacie Leslie (defensive specialist) 16/17 serving, 2 aces and 2 digs.

Thanks to all the players, coaches, administration and parents for an awesome season!

 

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