The season has begun for the Santa Barbara Volleyball Club’s boys teams. The 17-Blue team and 18-Blues took to the courts for the first of three qualifying tournaments for the regular season in the Southern California Volleyball Association.
Here are the results of their matches:
The 17-Blue team finished the day with a 2-1 record, keeping themselves in the upper bracket for the next round. The team beat Seaside 18-Green (25-17, 25-12) and Forza1 West 18s (25-13, 25-10).
“The team took care of business in its first tournament finishing second in pool and holding its seed in the SCVA rankings going into the second qualifying day,” said coach Matt Jones.
The team dropped its last match of the day to HLVBC 18UA (25-19, 25-16). “All day, Dane Pederson and Kevin Peters were reliable threats on the pins, delivering kills and carrying the offensive load,” Jones went on to say. “The team served well on the day, with many players contributing aces. Ben Beifuss and Parker Crossland each had service runs of 4 and 5 aces, respectively, in different sets. The team looks forward to getting back in the gym to prepare for the challenging day 2 of qualifying in two weeks’ time.”
Competing as a small crew with a couple players missing, the 18-Blue team finished third on the day.
“We had only 7 players today, and everyone stepped up and played well!” mentioned Justin Hertlein, head coach of the team. The team beat Seaside South 18s 25-20, 25-19 to start, and lost a tight battle to Coast 18-Austin (26-24, 25-23) and were defeated by San Gabriel 17 Elite (25-19, 25-14).
“We had a confident win in our first match, and then lost a tight battle in the second one,” continued Hertlein. “Blake Lockhart led the team with the most kills on the outside, while Morgan Piece filled in at the setting role and performed well. Our middles Adam Shields and Connor Sullivan both played extremely well in hitting percentages and patrolling the net with aggressive blocking.”
The team will compete for a second chance at the upper bracket in the next qualifying round in November.
