Newport Harbor fends off challenge from Mater Dei

Two points is what stood between the Newport Harbor girls volleyball team being extended to a fifth game in Tuesday's CIF-SS Division 1AA semifinal against Mater Dei.

Fortunately for the Sailors, it would be three points that would send them to the finals.

Newport Harbor trailed Mater Dei, 23-22, in the fourth game. With a capacity crowd anticipating every point, the host Sailors closed the match with a kill from Claire Castillo, followed by a hitting error and then Kasey Thompson closed the match with a soft tip shot that found an empty spot on the court, giving the Sailors the 25-22, 18-25, 25-16, 25-23 victory over the Monarchs (26-9).

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The Sailors (25-8) will face Sunset League rival Los Alamitos in the finals, likely Saturday night at Cypress College.

The finals schedule will be announced Wednesday.

Los Alamitos, which defeated Newport Harbor in both league meetings, swept Dos Pueblos of Goleta in the other semifinal match.

"We just kind of hung in there. I was a little disappointed that we made some communication errors in the fourth game with our setter and our hitters," Newport Harbor coach Dan Glenn said. "But we hung in there and we knew that if we could keep it close in the end, then with our serving and defense, that we would have a shot."

Newport Harbor led, 16-13, in the fourth game, but the Monarchs came out of a timeout to rally to tie the score at 17-17 and eventually took a 20-18 lead.

The Sailors tied the score at 20-20 on one of Cinnamon Sary's 22 kills. Later, Mater Dei took the 23-22 lead on a kill by Maddie Frome, setting things up for the Sailors' rally.

"It has been an up and down year," Glenn said. "It is nice to see because the kids have worked really hard and we've had so many kids overcome injuries ... great to see the kids step up."

Glenn pointed to the Sailors' victory in the first game as a key point of the match. Newport Harbor led throughout the match, but the Monarchs managed to fight back and make things interesting before the Sailors won the game.

The Monarchs even the match at 1-1 by taking the second. Newport Harbor dominated in the third game, leading at one point 18-9.

"We kind of looked at each other and we knew how important it was," Sary said. "We let down in the second game, but we got it back together and we knew that we had to be on the offensive and play like the score was 0-0."

Frome led the Monarchs with 20 kills. Sara Hughes had 32 assists.

Torey Thompson had 35 assists for the Sailors. Kasey Thompson and Castillo both had six kills apiece.

Also in Division 1AA:

Los Alamitos 3, Dos Pueblos of Goleta 0: The Griffins (34-3) continued their perfect run through the playoffs with a 25-21, 25-12, 25-19 home victory over the Chargers.

Alijah Gunsaulus and JoJo Schnabl had 11 kills apiece and Jaylen Villanueva added 10.

In Division 2A:

Whittier Christian 3, Oxnard 0: Deanna Blaine led the Heralds (24-2) with 17 kills and Jaclyn Barrera and Kylee Wolfe had 14 apiece in the 20-25, 25-15, 25-22, 25-18 home victory.

Whittier Christian will face Downey in the final.

In Division 4A:

Connelly 3, Saddleback Valley Christian 1: Nicole Yost had 19 kills and Belinda Mullally had 17 to lead the Koalas (18-5) to the 25-23, 25-16, 23-25, 25-23 home victory.

Connelly will be making its fifth trip to the finals in the last six years.

Connelly will face Hemet in the finals. Hemet defeated Pacifica Christian of Santa Monica, 25-15, 25-20, 25-14 in the other semifinal.