The Corona del Mar girls volleyball team set the tone early and never looked back in the annual Battle of the Bay match against rival Newport Harbor.
CdM’s Katie Craig had seven of her 13 kills in the first set, helping lead the Sea Kings to the 25-19, 25-14, 24-12 home victory over Newport Harbor.
“I think they served us off the court tonight, bottom line,” Newport Harbor coach Dan Glenn said. “I thought we had some momentum coming in here, we were playing pretty well, but they never let us get any rhythm because they served so tough.”
Newport Harbor (2-4) led in the first set as late as 14-13, but Corona del Mar rallied to take the lead for the good at 17-15 on a kill from Craig.
From there the Sea Kings (7-1) started to exert control, forcing another Newport Harbor timeout with the scored 22-16 after an ace by Payton Carter.
“You never know what to expect in the Battle of the Bay,” CdM coach Steve Astor said. “Game one was back and forth, they were up with the momentum and I told the girls before the game that the two keys for us were to relax and have fun. … We started to do that in the middle of game one.”
The teams met in the playoffs of the Dave Mohs Memorial Tournament on Saturday with CdM winning in two sets.
“They really took us out of our game with their serve,” Glenn said. “They served tough and played really good defense.
“They were a much better team than we were in every aspect.”
CdM dominated the rest of the match, giving them at least four consecutive victories against their rival.
Aside from Craig’s 13 kills, Jessie Harris added eight, Natalia Bruening and Sydney Alacano had five apice and Samantha Jones chipped in with four.
“It is hard to score on us if we’re serving like we’re capable of,” Astor said. “We did a good job of keeping them off of the net and we converted our chances. We talk about converting when we get our chances and we did a good job converting those points.”
Remy Wilson led the Sailors with 10 kills. Gabby Shelley and Logan Grove had six and five, respectively.
“When you’re not playing well, you want to do whatever you can just to extend it (the match) … and they never let us,” Glenn said.
In nonleague girls volleyball:
Esperanza 3, Orange Lutheran 2: Kylie Berridge had 11 kills and Yagoda Jedrzejdzak and Avery Stowell added nine and eight, respectively to lead the visiting Aztecs (10-4) in a 25-18, 16-25, 22-25, 25-19, 15-11 road victory.
Brigette Waldrup had 23 digs for the Aztecs.
No. 7 Huntington Beach 3, Dana Hills 2: The Oilers (8-3) rallied from an 0-2 deficit to defeat the visiting Dolphins (3-6), 25-27, 19-25, 25-18, 25-22, 15-12.
Cami Sanchez led the Oilers with 18 kills. Maddie Kaprelyan had 13 and four blocks.
No. 3 Aliso Niguel 3, No. 7 JSerra 1: Lindsey Ruddins had 30 kills and McKenna Ross had 15 in the 25-18, 21-25, 25-20, 25-23, road victory for the Wolverines (9-1).
Kayla Demari had 16 kills and Haylee Gasser had 11 for the Lions (5-4).
