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Damian Calhoun. Sports Newsroom Assistant.

// MORE INFORMATION: Associate Mug Shot taken August 24, 2010 : by KATE LUCAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

ANAHEIM – The next match for the Santa Margarita boys volleyball team looked a lot like the previous one.

Tuesday, the Eagles extended their Trinity League match against Mater Dei to five sets, but came up a couple of points short.

Thursday, Santa Margarita was back at the edge again, but this time, the Eagles were able to walk off the court with a better ending, edging host Servite, 25-21, 16-25, 20-25, 25-18, 15-13, to take sole possession of second place with one league match remaining.

“I kind of put it on these seniors, because we’ve never won at Servite before, even though we’ve won league,” Santa Margarita coach Justin DeBlasio said. “The seniors were 0-3 (at Servite) and we wanted to make it more of a memory and work on our confidence because it was a great match Tuesday night (against Mater Dei), it was just unfortunate that somebody had to lose.

“(This win is) is a huge confidence builder for us. Another high-level match, back-to-back and responding (with the victory), I think it goes to our maturity, with the seniors that we have.”

The Eagles (14-9, 6-3) pulled away early in the fourth set and forced a deciding fifth set.

In the fifth set, the Eagles led 11-9), but Servite  (13-13, 5-4) rallied and took the lead, 13-12, with a kill from Matthew Johnson. The Eagles again showed their resiliency, scoring the final three points to win the match.

“This was a big match,” senior outside hitter James Thomas said. “We really wanted this one tonight. We stuck to the game plan, practiced for Servite and really executed well.

“After the loss (to Mater Dei), you can hang your head, but honestly we came back into the gym the next day and went to work. It is kind of hard to forget the past, but you can’t really dwell on it, you have to focus on the future and stay motivated for the next match.”

Garrett Rohrer led the Eagles with 13 kills, Thomas added 12 and Brandon Lundstrom had nine.

Garrett Halsey led Servite with 17 kills. Johnson had 16.

The Eagles will conclude the regular season at Orange Lutheran on Tuesday. Servite will be home against JSerra on Monday.