“In Southern California, there’s no equal to DP right now.”
Santa Barbara High head coach John Gannon said that to the audience after the girls volleyball Tournament of Champions wrapped up on Saturday night.
He may be right, but when it comes to the state — no, the whole country — Archbishop Mitty is the biggest pumpkin in the patch, and on Halloween night the Monarchs spooked the Chargers into some key passing breakdowns to win the tourney title 25-21, 25-19, 23-25, 25-21.
“It’s the level we’ve always dreamed of playing at and it’s the level we want to play at,” said Chargers senior Sally Yingst, who earned All-Tournament honors along with phenomenal sophomore Taylor Racich. “To take them to four games again while fighting and believing that we can do it was important for us.”
The Monarchs have handed Dos Pueblos its only two losses of the season, with the first being at Mitty’s own tournament on September 19th. Mitty also won the TOC last season.
“I think ultimately the match came down to serving and passing, just like it does at all levels of volleyball,” said Monarchs coach Brett Almazan-Cezar.
Carly Wopat had 15 kills in the title game and sister Sam had 12 while Yingst had 11 with three aces. Mitty was led by All-Americans Kristina Graves (18 kills) and Rachel Williams (15 kills). Seven Monarchs have accepted scholarships to Division I schools.
The tournament MVP was senior setter Joan Caloirao, who efficiently dished the ball out to all of her weapons but was also lethal with her ability to dump the ball over on two.
“We give her the green light once in a while, and she does a great job… She’s got all these All-American hitters but she’s an All-American dumper. She leads our team in hitting percentage,” said Almazan-Cezar.
Dos Pueblos setter Paige Craine dishes out a back set as Kelcey Chaffin looks to go up and attack it in the Chargers' win over Newport Harbor. (Photo courtesy of Randy Vasquez)
Dos Pueblos setters Paige Craine and Sammie Brown were cool under pressure in the high-intensity match, dishing out 22 and 20 assists, respectively.
Mitty took a 4-1 lead in the first set but the Chargers surged back to force tie scores at 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 17 and 18. The Chargers had an 18-17 lead after a 7-point stretch in which the Monarchs committed seven unforced errors, but a late run was capped by an untouched ace by Mitty which ended the set.
DP stormed out to a 9-3 lead in the second set thanks to two kills and an ace early on from Carly Wopat. The Chargers had the lead until a shanked pass tied things up at 16-16. Back-to-back shanks and a rotation violation by DP were part of a 7-point run for the Monarchs that the Chargers couldn’t bounce back from.
Racich crushed a right-side set down the line that gave the Chargers a 7-4 lead in the third, but Williams detonated a pair of sets on the left side as part of a 4-point run that put Mitty up 8-7. Sam Wopat tipped for a kill and then won a joust before a Racich ace put DP up 16-14, forcing a Monarchs timeout. Caloirao came out and used her trickery to send one over on two for a point, but Dos Pueblos’ Karina Evans fired back with a solo block and Yingst put down an overpass to put the Chargers up 18-15.
The Monarchs tied it up at 22-22, but the Chargers stayed ahead thanks to a Racich ace and a tip by Sam Wopat that closed the set and sent the crowd, which was packed in tight around the court, into a frenzy.
Libero Megan Smith had a sparkling dig to extend a marathon point which ended on a Mitty hitting error that gave the Chargers a 16-14 lead in the fourth, but Mitty took the lead at 18-17 and never looked back.
“We’ve gotta remember that we’re playing the No. 1 team in the country… We saw our team come together like we haven’t seen before,” said Chargers coach Todd Garrett.
In the morning match, the Chargers mounted a tremendous comeback in the second set against Newport Harbor, winning eight straight points to climb out of an 18-24 deficit. Final scores of that match were 25-13, 26-24, 25-14. Dos Pueblos committed just three hitting errors as a team.
Perhaps the brightest individual performance of the weekend came from Racich, who has started to turn it on in a big way over the past couple of weeks. Yingst and the older girls have dubbed her “poof-ball” due to her long, frizzy hair, but there was nothing poofy about how she hammered the ball all weekend.
“She’s the poof-ball of the century. She’s so awesome and she brings us so much energy because she’s so innocent and young,” said Yingst.
Santa Barbara High started the morning off on a rough note, losing to Long Beach Wilson for the fourth straight year in the tournament 22-25, 25-17, 25-16, 25-22. Dani Rottman had four blocks and Kari Garcia added three while Katherine Keller shoveled up 16 digs and Emily Rottman put away 19 kills with 14 digs. Libero Sarah Mendoza was still not 100-percent recovered from a nasty flu, but wound up with 19 digs.
The Dons refused to lay down in the 11th-place match, however, losing the first set before taking down Buchanan in five games, 20-25, 26-24, 25-22, 17-25, 15-12. Dani Rottman, like Racich, is another sophomore that has shown star-potential, and she had a team-high 20 kills with 12 digs in the match.
“After the tough loss, I just wanted to get after it and do as well as I could in this match,” she said. “Winning that match ended things on a good note, which I think we needed.”
Then there was San Marcos, which finished in 16th place after being swept twice on Saturday. The Royals fell in the early morning match against Bishop Montgomery 25-13, 25-14, 25-13 and then faced Liberty in the 15th-place game. After losing the first set 25-16 and the second 25-18, they came oh-so-close to pulling out the third. A tip in the middle by Jaimie Mayner tied things up at 23-23 and a Liberty hitting error later knotted it up at 24-24, but San Marcos dropped the next two points to end the match.
“It would have meant a lot for us to play in such a high-level tournament and take a match from a really good team,” said coach Erica Downing. “But I think our girls know how hard they played. That was the best competitive spirit I’ve seen from them.”
Mayner finished with six blocks while Emma Campbell had 14 digs and Casey Harding-Brown dished out 20 assists. The Royals play DP on Tuesday before their league finale at Ventura on Thursday.
