Woodbridge plays its way into volleyball top 10
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In some athletic programs at some schools, excellence is annual. Excellence is cyclical, when it occurs at all, in most athletic programs at most schools.
Woodbridge's boys volleyball program is at the good part of that cycle. The Warriors improved to 15-8 overall and 5-0 in the Sea View League with their four-game victory over Huntington Beach on Tuesday.
The Warriors don't have those tall, long-armed leapers that the best teams usually have in the middle, but they serve and pass well enough to be ranked No. 7 in the typically deep top 10 in Orange County.
Setter Scott Liljestrom, headed for Princeton, and outside hitters Cameron Kosbab and Blake Mills are the leaders of a team that has 13 seniors. All have been in the volleyball program since they were freshmen.
This is one of those groups that don't come around too often, said Woodbridge coach Donnnie Rafter, in his fourth year coaching Warriors boys volleyball. It's definitely a rare group.
Woodbridge finished fourth in the Division I portion of the Orange County Championships last month. In their next match, the Warriors beat Foothill in a league match.
That was our biggest match, the first one that really meant anything, Rafter said. And we have them coming up again.
Woodbridge plays at Foothill in a league match Thursday, and hopes to keep riding that good part of the cycle.
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
The Orange County Track and Field Championships are Saturday at Mission Viejo High. The field is talented and deep, as usual, including the excellent trio of girls distance runners, Christine Babcock of Woodbridge, Shelby Buckley of Corona del Mar and Alex Dunne of San Clemente (there are other good ones in the county, but those three reign supreme). Orange Lutheran's Blake Ayles will defend his 2007 county championship in the discus, and Riley Sullivan of Trabuco Hills leads the field of boys distance runners.
One of the most versatile athletes of this school year is Savanna's Dominique Williams. He was a top running back on the Rebels' football team, a key contributor to their Orange League champion basketball team and is one of the county's top sprinters and long jumpers. He is entered in the sprints and the long jump at the county meet.
Carlo Valdes of Mater Dei has the county's second-fastest time in the 200, the third-fastest in the 100, and the fourth-best throw in the discus. That's versatility, too, from a guy who was an All-Trinity League first-team receiver in football.
The CIF-Southern Section Executive Committee meets Wednesday, and on the agenda is a discussion of the proposed split of the section's private/parochial and public schools into separate playoff divisions. The Executive Committee, composed of 16 school superintendents and administrators who represent the section's varied member schools, reviews proposals and submits recommendations on them, among other duties. The CIF-SS Council will vote on that proposal at its April 24 meeting, and the Council often follows Executive Committee recommendation.
According to CIF State office records, 94 percent of all transfer requests statewide were granted under the new CIF State rule by which student-athletes can make a transfer before their sophomore year without having to change residences, a must for any transfer attempt once the sophomore year is under way. Issues like grade problems or undue influence were involved in most of the denied requests.
More data from the CIF State office, which was presented at the California State Athletic Directors conference: 38.8 percent of the state's students participate in athletics.
College Sports Quest is presenting its College Recruiting Workshop for parents and student-athletes Saturday at 10 a.m. at UC Irvine. The workshop is free, but advance registration is requested. Visit collegesportsquest.com to register and learn more about College Sports Quest, or call 714-917-3588.
Some cool new features at ocvarsity.com: columns from various staff members (including a thought-provoker from Dan Albano on a proposal regarding the association rule, which governs how much high school coaches can work with their school's athletes outside of the regular season); and best-games-of-the-day previews for all sports.
Two corrections: In coverage of the Trabuco Hills-El Toro baseball game, Garrett Donohoe hit an RBI single that was credited to a teammate; and county boys shot put record holder Brian Blutreich went to Capistrano Valley, not San Clemente. Mark those E-Fryer on your scorecards, thank you.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
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