There should be a hole in the floor at J.R. Richards Gym, because Katherine Keller was digging the whole night.
Santa Barbara High’s junior libero tallied 33 digs and passed with a surgeon’s precision Wednesday as the Dons took down visiting Marymount 25-17, 21-25, 25-19, 24-17 to set up a local CIF championship bout.
No. 2 Santa Barbara (25-7) will meet top-ranked Dos Pueblos (28-5) at UCSB’s Robertson Gym on Saturday at 4 p.m. with the title at stake.
“She’s a special player. It’s a true pleasure to coach a player like that in a match,” said head coach John Gannon of Keller.
DP coach Dwayne Hauschild said earlier in the week that he thought Keller was the best libero in the Southern Section, and Gannon said that San Clemente’s Erin Yoder was the only other player that he thought could match her.
Somehow, the serves kept coming to Keller despite her nearly flawless passing.
“It’s a lot of fun when they serve me. I like it,” she said with a grin.
There was more than just one big-time performance on Santa Barbara’s side, however. Middle blocker Hadley Simmons, headed for the University of San Francisco next year, found a zone in the third game and collected three of her eight blocks and three of her 12 kills down the stretch.
“I was just super pumped. I kept on looking into the future and the prospect of us playing DP and it really motivated me,” said Simmons.
After relinquishing the Channel League title through two losses to the Chargers this year, the motivation isn’t hard to come by.
Wednesday’s match was full of marathon rallies, kept alive by strong defense on both sides of the net.
Marymount (24-6) took a 12-10 lead in the first but Mimi Cuttrell stepped to the service line and stayed there until the Dons were up 18-12. Simmons put away two big kills before Cuttrell notched a block to end the set.
The second game opened up with a long rally that ended in an Emily Rottman kill. Rottman had a spectacular all-around night with 17 kills, 10 digs and a pair of blocks.
“Emily did an incredible job on defense. We rely on her quite a bit because the outside hitters hit the ball to the angle and right into her lap… Emily’s defense is so critical for us,” said Gannon.
Simmons put away a kill from the middle to give the Dons an 8-5 lead in the second, but the Sailors caught some wind and sailed back. Keller had three great digs on one point and Rottman ended it with a kill to get the crowd on its feet at 14-14. The game would be knotted up again at 20 apiece before the visitors pulled away and finished it off on a swing by Marion Fuller.
Keller had her ankle taped after the second game and walked back to the bench with a slight limp, but it didn’t show once she got back out on the court.
Rottman made a diving save of a ball and another dig on a long rally which finished with a kill by Eve Ettinger that put Santa Barbara up 9-7 in the third. Keller had a double-dig point later on which was finished off again by Ettinger, a 6-foot-1 sophomore who finished with 15 kills, and Santa Barbara took an 18-14 lead.
It was the Hadley Simmons Show the rest of the way in the third game.
“I’m so proud of her. She played like a senior should play,” said Gannon. “I kind of get on her quite a bit in practice, but she showed that she’s mentally tough and I’m just proud of how she played.”
Rottman nabbed three consecutive kills in third game and Cuttrell followed up with an ace as the Dons never looked back. The match ended on a Marymount service error.
Santa Barbara High played Dos Pueblos in last year’s girls water polo final, with the Chargers prevailing. Now it’s volleyball’s turn, and Saturday’s match promises to be a thriller.
Simmons had said “you can’t even write how badly I want to beat them” after Santa Barbara’s first loss to DP a couple of months ago, and since then the Dons have fallen to the Chargers again.
This time, it’s for all the marbles.
“You always want the opportunity to play against the best at the end of the season, and that’s what we’re looking at,” said Gannon.
