The Dos Pueblos boys volleyball team showed Thursday night that a month of madness is not exclusive to basketball.
The Chargers stepped up behind the hitting of Matt Sessler and some solid play at the net and handed CIF Division 2 top-ranked San Marcos its first loss of the season. They beat the Royals in five sets, 20-25, 25-23, 25-22, 19-25, 15-13, in a Channel League match at Sovine Gym.
The result leaves DP alone in first place in the league at 2-0 (4-2 overall), with both victories coming against their crosstown rivals. They beat Santa Barbara last week.
“That’s the first time since forever,” senior captain and libero Niko Plesons said. “Since I’ve been here we haven’t done it. Props to (coach Ehren) Hug, too, first year on the job and he beats them both.”
San Marcos played without its top hitter, 6-7 Shane Hauschild, who was on a trip to Europe to play water polo. He has a water polo scholarship to UCSB.
The Chargers were aware Hauschild wasn’t going to play.
“We heard about it earlier this week,” DP setter Mark Raphael said. “We still wanted to come out and play as hard as we could.”
It didn’t matter to DP coach Ehren Hug. “You know, we played the San Marcos Royals tonight, and whoever is on the other side of the court we’ll play against,” he said. “Any time you get the chance to play San Marcos or Santa Barbara, you get up for that game.”
Plesons was impressed how the Royals responded without their Channel League MVP and All-CIF player.
“You got to give it to SM, they killed it without one of their big guys,” he said. “I was afraid we were going to lose. We were right on the ropes. I think Sessler stepped up huge and got a bunch of kills. Our blocking came through in the end. We blocked four in a row in that last set. It was awesome.”
Sessler delivered as the go-to guy on the outside for the Chargers. He put down 26 kills. He was huge factor in the second set. He gave DP a 21-20 lead with a sideout kill and then finished a long rally in which he had three swings, scoring the 22nd point on the third swing. He hit for another sideout at 24-23 before Eli Wopat finished the set with a solo block.
“He’s stepping up to the plate, he’s really confident,” said Hug of the 6-5 Sessler, who was an All-City football player at wide receiver. “He doesn’t say much, but he wants the ball this season and we want to get it to him. He was really smart with his shots tonight. He wants to be that stud that we need on the outside.”
Sessler said he didn’t know he’d be the go-to guy at the start of the match.
“We got a lot of guys that can play,” he said. “Our middles are really good, and our other outside, too. We can really spread the ball around, and I just got lucky with it. Tonight, I got the sets coming to me and I was happy with that, getting some kills. But it was a team effort overall.
“They were missing their big guy, so it was a different game. But we’re happy with the win.”
Nate Holmes added 12 kills and Wopat recorded six to go with four solo blocks and five block assists for DP (2-0 in league) Kurtis Randmaa had three solo blocks and four block assists and Plesons picked up 29 digs.
Baker Johnson led San Marcos (15-1, 1-1) with 24 kills. Setter Christian Widmer had 48 assists.
Johnson got the Royals off to a good start in the third set, ripping three kills to help them take a 7-3 lead. But Dos Pueblos crept back, taking advantage of San Marcos errors, and tied the score at 13-13. San Marcos went back ahead when Connor Everman ripped a cross-court spike that ricocheted off the arm of Plesons toward the ceiling and knocked out a light bulb. After the floor was swept, DP went on a 7-2 run to take a 20-16 lead.
Johnson scored on a shoot set from Christian Widmer to bring the Royals to within two at 21-19. But a net violation by the Royals started a three-point run for the Chargers. Johnson got a sideout and Nick Rockwell served a pair of aces to make it 24-22.
The Royals served Sessler, who gave Raphael a good pass, got the set and dinked for the winning point and a 2-1 advantage.
“He was putting down a ton of balls and he was really consistent throughout the night,” said Raphael of Sessler.
San Marcos built a 16-12 lead in the fourth set behind the hitting of Johnson and middle Taylor Mann. DP got as close as three (20-17) before the Royals closed out the set with a 5-2 run. Widmer blocked for the winning point.
In the fifth set, San Marcos pulled to within 9-8 on a bad DP pass and set. Sessler, however, got the Chargers back on track with a sideout. A San Marcos hitting error made it 11-8.
DP continued to make plays. Sessler hit off the block, Eli Shulman scored on a tip and Wopat crushed a ball to give the Chargers a 14-11 advantage. San Marcos kept battling and pulled to 14-13 on a block by Cole Wenal.
The Chargers scored the final point when Randmaa tipped an overset into an open spot on the San Marcos side.
“That last game everybody really came together,” Plesons said. “We kind of meshed as a team for the first time in the season. It was really fun.”
Said Hug: “The boys played their hearts out. They were really competitive tonight and just hungry. When you play with that mentality, you’re pretty tough to beat. I’m not saying we played a perfect, clean game. We went after every point as hard as we could. I’m very, very pleased with that.”
