Dos Pueblos’ Amanda Moriarty receives a serve from San Clemente on Saturday with teammate Katie Spieler at her side.
Chemistry is a lot more fun on the volleyball court than the classroom. Dos Pueblos’ girls volleyball team used its strong team bond to dismantle visiting San Clemente on Saturday, eliminating the Tritons 25-19, 25-21, 25-23 in Sovine Gym.
The victory places the Chargers in the Division 1-AA CIF semifinals where they will meet Los Alamitos on the Griffins’ court this Tuesday. Los Alamitos swept Thousand Oaks 25-21, 25-17, 25-16.
“Our chemistry, I can’t tell you enough, that’s what’s beating all these teams we’re playing,” said Chargers senior Taylor Racich. “We’re playing as a family, that’s the main part.”
Racich tallied 11 kills and four aces for DP, and Katie Spieler recorded 19 digs. Amanda Moriarty collected a team-high 12 kills and added three aces.
“There were a lot of people who, you know, didn’t really discount us out, but also didn’t really think much of us,” Chargers head coach Todd Garrett said. “Coming into the season, Jacky Yao, our other coach, and our girls knew we had a special team from day one.”
The Chargers were able to sweep the Tritons, who feature Nebraksa-bound Alexa Strange. But San Clemente started off hot, taking a 7-1 lead in the first game. Dos Pueblos did not take long to recover, catching the Tritons at 11-11 and taking their first lead at 12-11.
Dos Pueblos barely trailed again the rest of the match.
“Of course we’re going to have a little jitters our team, but we came back,” Racich explained of the slow start. “We’ve had a lot of comebacks this year and we knew we could come back.”
The second game was back-and-forth from the start. Neither team led by more than two until Moriarty put away a kill that made it 12-9. The Chargers went on a run and took a 21-14 lead thanks to three straight kills from Sierra Hofstatter, but San Clemente fought back to tie the set at 21-21 with a run of their own.
DP never gave the Tritons a lead though, reeling off the next four points punctuated on set-point by a Racich kill.
“I was surprised that I like got set that much and got a bunch of kills,” Hofstatter said. “It felt really good.”
In game three, Dos Pueblos led from start to finish. Just like in game two, the Tritons fell behind and had to fight back. DP grabbed a 16-8 lead but found itself clinging to leads of 23-22 and 24-23 at the end of the match. A service error gave Dos Pueblos its match point.
“I think our main problem with (Dos Pueblos) was they were a really, really tough serving team and our serve-receive just kind of broke down because they were serving so aggressive and we weren’t used to that,” said Strange.
Dos Pueblos improves to 33-7 on the year.
