Tesoro girls aren't backing down

HUNTINGTON BEACH – The season is unlike any previous for the Tesoro girls volleyball team.

After winning the Sea View League title last season, Tesoro was moved to the South Coast League and that means they are now competing in the ultra-competitive CIF-SS Division 1AA.

With an experienced core group of returners, the Titans entered the season as a team to watch and they're backing that up with their play so far.

Tesoro, ranked sixth in the county, defeated eighth-ranked Huntington Beach, 25-16, 15-25, 25-15, 25-16, on Thursday night.

The Titans improved to 5-0.

"We've never been here and we're learning and we're getting better," Tesoro coach Rich Polk said. "When you come from a program that's never been competitive in Division 1 ... we won the league title last year for the first time in the Sea View League and a lot of our girls just haven't been there.

"So we're trying to mature and learn now to do that on a daily basis."

That maturity was on display in the later stages of the match. After dropping the second set, the Titans regrouped to win sets three and four to close out the match.

"The team that was up kind of ran with it and the other team had trouble battling just on the hard plays and the broken plays," Polk said. "We're learning how to grind and do the hard things. We scored a lot of points serving. We had some good digs by our libero Hannah Gleason and our passing got a little better. This was a good win for us."

Sarah Krufka led Tesoro with 16 kills. Makensie Bates had 15.

Megan Gibbs and Amanda Linzmeyer had nine kills apiece for the Oilers (6-2).

"We didn't pass well and we made too many unforced errors," Huntington Beach coach Craig Pazanti said. "At one point in the fourth, we were down 10-4 and I think we had seven unforced errors of their 10 points. That was kind of a theme.

"They (Tesoro) played tough, they served the ball well and they didn't make a lot of errors. That's a good team."