Shebby powers No. 1 Mater Dei past Santa Margarita

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – Mater Dei junior outside hitter Frankie Shebby didn't wait long to get going in Thursday's Trinity League girls volleyball showdown against Santa Margarita.

Shebby had six kills in the first set, even though the Monarchs dropped the opener.

For the remainder of the match Shebby stayed consistent and the top-ranked Monarchs (26-4, 5-0) followed her lead for the 20-25, 25-19, 25-20, 26-24 road victory over fourth-ranked Santa Margarita (18-5, 4-2).

"She did an amazing job," Mater Dei setter Sara Hughes said. "She was hitting over the block. I was trying to set her a little faster so she wouldn't have the block on her."

Shebby finished with 29 kills on 52 attempts (.460 percentage).

"When she sets the tone, we tend to roll," Mater Dei coach Adam Cutrell said.

The Monarchs received solid contributions all around. Middle blocker Cheyenne Arcuri had 12 kills, followed by Hughes with eight, Skyler Hubler with seven and Jaden Pickell with six.

Hughes also had 48 assists and 12 digs.

"We trying to keep things super simple," Cutrell said. "We feel like we had two really good pin hitters and our opposites aren't too shabby, so we feel like we don't really need to complicate things, especially when we're getting significant improvement out of our middles, blocking and offensively."

In the first match, Oct. 2, Santa Margarita won the first two sets, before the Monarchs rallied to win the match in five.

The Monarchs were intent on not repeating that road this time around.

"We were out of system a little bit," Hughes said of the early stages of the match. "We had to calm down and then we got into system and Frankie and I were connecting and that was one of the key things that brought us together."

The Eagles tried to extend the match to a fifth set, rallying from 24-22 to tie the fourth set at 24-24 on a kill from Brittany Ptak.

The Monarchs sealed the match with a kill from Pickell and an ace by Shebby.

"We made errors at the right time for Mater Dei," Santa Margarita coach Katy Daly said. "I think we played on emotion in Game 1 and it is hard to play with that emotion with four games or five games. We came out hot and heavy, but in Game 2 our weight was on our heels and we played reactive instead of going out there and controlling the match."

Ptak had 16 kills for Santa Margarita.

The Monarchs have a two-game lead over Santa Margarita with two matches remaining.

Contact the writer: dcalhoun@ocregister.com