Despite a balanced effort with four players tallying eight or more kills, Santa Barbara High’s boys volleyball team couldn’t hold off No. 2 Mira Costa on Friday night in an early season matchup of perennial powers. The Dons missed 14 serves and struggled on defense in just their second match of the year, falling 25-13, 20-25, 25-16, 35-17 to the Mustangs.
“I just think they were more consistent and more disciplined. They made their serves; I think they ran a better offense… Right now we’re kinda just a little erratic on our offense,” said Dons coach Chad Arneson.
With UCLA-bound Clifford Anderson sidelined by injury for the next month, Sam Cohen stepped in at middle blocker and had nine kills in his first varsity start. Holden Ploch, the team’s other middle blocker, also had nine kills while Alex Biedul led the way with 13 put-aways.
Santa Barbara libero Mark Outwater receives a serve from Mira Costa. (Vince Agapito photos)
Santa Barbara (1-1), however, committed too many unforced errors, missing 14 serves on the night — including five in the third set. Five of Mira Costa’s six starters were making their debuts on the first string, but the visitors were more stabilized as setter Kameron Bain dished out 46 assists in the victory. The Mustangs’ multi-faceted attack was led by 15 kills from D.J. White.
“We preach taking care of the ball… We’re inexperienced but we’re talented. I’d rather take the talent and have a little bit of inexperience,” said Mira Costa coach Sean Shoptaw.
Santa Barbara setter Gavin Trudeau sets one up for the Dons.
Santa Barbara is gaining experience against the best teams around right away, having already defeated Harvard-Westlake in the season-opener before coming up short against the Mustangs (1-0). It doesn’t get too much easier, as next up is a Wednesday match against an always-strong Royal program before the Best of the West Tournament in San Diego.
Mira Costa never trailed in the first set, as Jake Miller picked up a back-row kill to open the match and had three more with two aces before the frame ended. Cohen and Casey Slaught had back-to-back kills early in the second game, but Santa Barbara saw an early lead morph into a 17-13 deficit midway through. Ploch followed up a kill with an ace late in the game, and Biedul followed that up with one from the left side to tie the score at 19-19. The teams traded errors before Santa Barbara won the last five rallies.
The No. 9 Dons opened the third set with a missed serve and were plagued by miscues all the way through. A block by Cohen sparked a mini-run midway through, but the hosts never got cliser than five points away. The fourth set was more of the same, with Chris Orenic and Miller catching fire to close out the match.
“We took a game off of the No.2 team in CIF, and I thought that that was a pretty good accomplishment,” said Slaught.
