The Santa Barbara High girls volleyball team suffered its first loss of the season on Tuesday. (Photos by Vince Agapito)
Santa Barbara's Holland Crenshaw tallied three kills in the match.
Santa Barbara learned just how far it has to go to be a CIF title-contending girls volleyball team Tuesday night.
Harvard Westlake dominated the Dons in almost every facet of the game in rolling to 25-14, 25-12, 25-18 sweep at J.R. Richards Gym.
“We were exposed tonight,” Santa Barbara coach John Gannon said. “Senior teams will do that.”
The senior-dominated Wolverines used strong serving to throw the Dons out of system.
“They won the battle of serving and passing,” said assistant Lee Carlander. “We only got Eve (Ettinger) three balls in the first game.”
The USC-bound senior led the Dons with seven kills. Holland Crenshaw added three.
“We were not able to get the ball to net to run the offense the way we wanted to,” said Gannon, whose team fell to 2-1.
Harvard Westlake entered the matched ranked No. 1 by the L.A. Daily News and No. 10 in the CIF 1-AA Division.
“Our girls came out a little surprised. The competition was significantly higher than the first two matches,” Carlander said.
It doesn’t get any easier, either. The Dons next play CIF No. 5-ranked Thousand Oaks on Thursday at home.
Gannon said playing tough opponents will only make his team stronger.
“In the long term, hopefully we’ll get better as the season progresses,” he said. “We’re looking at this as an opportunity to work on things that were exposed, things we probably should be working on.”
[ad#Story Embed 1 – 468×60]
