Clifford Anderson looked like he found a new gear in Tuesday’s CIF Division I playoff opener, and the rest of the Santa Barbara High volleyball team followed the big guy’s lead in a 25-18, 25-16, 25-22 sweep of visiting Long Beach Wilson.
“I thought Clifford really set the tone for us. It was pretty much one of the best performances I’ve seen from him in his three years here,” said coach Chad Arneson. “I know he’s been waiting for the opportunity to perform like this and he really just put on a clinic tonight.”
The 6-foot-9 middle blocker had just five kills but tacked on an impressive 11 blocks as the Dons matched the enthusiasm and defense of the perennially fiery Bruins. The teams had met earlier in the year at the Karch Kiraly/Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions and the Dons pulled out a 5-set thriller, 25-20, 19-25, 23-25, 25-22, 15-9. The Bruins were missing two key starters on Tuesday, and while coach Susan Pescar said it certainly threw her team off she didn’t want to take anything away from the Dons.
“When you’re missing someone like that, it’s kind of hard to circle the wagons and make sure that the court has the same feeling. You lose that familiarity and comfort level I think,” she said. “On the other hand, you have to give them a lot of credit. They took us out of our game, and even with those two guys on the court it would have been a formidable match… I think it would have gone five and been anybody’s game.”
Anderson’s best play of the night came in the second game. Sophomore setter Gavin Trudeau started the frame with two consecutive aces, but a rotation error by the Dons made it 2-1. Anderson went up and crushed a ball in the middle on the next rally, and everyone in the gym thought the point was going to end. The Bruins somehow dug the rocket, however, and Anderson alertly stayed with the play. He then ended it for good with an authoritative solo stuff that had the Dons bench on its feet and fired up.
“I thought I killed it but the libero made a great dig. They set the middle back and I just went up with it,” he said, adding that the playoffs definitely have a different feel to them.
“Definitely, because we had the crowd going and it was a more exciting environment. We lost a tough match to Mira Costa on Friday, so we just wanted to come out and show some fire.”
The second game stayed close until one of Santa Barbara’s promising young sophomores, Casey Slaught, went on a bit of a tear down the stretch. He picked up a kill from the left side to make it 15-12, which was followed by a block from Anderson and Nick Clark. Slaught then took a set on the right side and pasted the back line with it for another point. The teams traded service errors before Slaught came through once again on the right, giving the Dons a 19-13 edge. He put down his fourth kill of the stretch on a kill out of the back row. Alec Smyth and Anderson ended the game with a block.
The Bruins showed no signs of quitting in the third game, rallying back from a 5-1 early deficit to take the lead at three different junctures (18-17, 21-10 and 22-21) late in the set. The most thrilling point came with the Dons leading 16-15. A marathon rally included a series where all three touches on the Long Beach side were diving saves. After miraculously getting the ball back over, the Bruins kept digging away until Holden Ploch put the ball away in the middle to finally end it in the Dons’ favor.
The point set the Santa Barbara fans to their feet and prompted Arneson to walk over toward the Bruins’ side and applaud them.
Ploch won a joust to tie the game up at 19 after Long Beach took a brief lead, and Santa Barbara pulled out another defense-laden long rally on the next point. The Bruins, however, took the lead again at 21-20. Clark responded with a great pass that led to a Smyth crush. Long Beach took the lead one more, but committed two errors from that point forward. The match ended on two straight blocks by the duo of Anderson and Roman Tartler.
The Dons will face No. 4 Esperanza in Thursday’s next round, with the location to be determined.
“We’re only getting better, and that’s what you want to see going into the playoffs,” said Arneson.
