SANTA CRUZ >> After winning the first Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League Tournament boys volleyball semifinal held Thursday night at Harbor High, most of the Mount Madonna School players didn’t stick around to watch the night cap.
They already knew all too well what they’d be up against in Friday night’s final.
For the fourth time this season, the Hawks will try to knock off rival Aptos, this time for a share of the SCCAL title in a 7 p.m. match at Harbor High.
“I think it will be our best game of the season,” said sophomore Brigg Busenhart, who stayed to work at the scorer’s table while many of his teammates headed home to study for finals and to refuel. “It’s definitely really going to be a tough one.”
Not that getting to the final was easy, for either team.
No. 3-seeded Harbor, which could easily win the league’s most improved team award, gave the No. 2 Hawks a fight before falling 25-23, 25-22, 25-19. A young Pacific Collegiate School team, which held the No. 4 seed, led each of its first two sets against No. 1 Aptos before falling 25-23, 21-25, 25-19, 25-23.
That set up the next chapter in the saga between Mount Madonna and the Mariners. During the regular season, the Mariners (22-7) beat Mount Madonna (23-7) twice on their way to going undefeated in league play and also took down the Hawks in a tournament. Two of the teams’ three matches have gone to the maximum number of games.
“Confident,” is how Aptos coach Jake Landel described how he feels about the final. “My kids are going to come to play to the best of their abilities, as they have all season.”
But as both teams know, anything can happen in the tournament final. In fact, just last season, facing a similar situation, Mount Madonna came up with the win over Aptos to steal a share of the SCCAL title.
“I think we can stop them in the end,” Busenhart said. “That’s what we did last year.”
On Thursday, Mount Madonna earned itself a chance to repeat the feat by rallying back from behind in a pivotal Game 2 against Harbor (14-7).
The host Pirates built up an early five-point lead on Hawks errors and the strong play of senior setter Andrew Huckabee, who had broken his wrist during a tournament match Saturday but still got lofty sets to senior outside Chayton Clark, sophomore middle Cameron Clouse and sophomore right side Calvin Sanborne. The team kept about that much padding until Busenhart recorded three straight kills — one on a tip and two on sharp hits — to tie the score at 17s. Harbor couldn’t distance itself again after that, as the teams see-sawed until Mount Madonna turned to senior middle Holden Smith. His nearly straight down kill broke a 22-all tie, and he followed it up with another kill on a perfect, suck-it-in set by freshman Luca Peruzzi before ending the match by joining Nate Vince for a block.
That victory took a toll on the senior-heavy Pirates’ psyche, and the wheels began to fall off midway through the third and final set.
Busenhart finished with a team-high eight kills and two blocks for the match, while Zac Clark made seven kills and Smith finished with six plus two blocks. Peruzzi totaled 34 assists, a kill and an ace.
Clark led Harbor with 14 kills, followed by eight from Sanborn. Clouse and Kyle Luke each tallied four blocks.
Coach Chickory Roth said he had hoped for more from what he called “the best team Harbor’s had in my memory.”
“We came in with big expectations for ourselves and then it just came down to playing badly,” he said.
Part of the problem, Roth said, was that the realization set in for his five seniors (on a nine-player team), that this could be their last high school game. He’s hoping it won’t be. The Pirates are applying for an at-large berth to the Central Coast Section playoffs, the seeding meeting for which will be held Saturday in San Jose.
“I think we can go deep into CCS,” Roth said, “if we make it.”
Aptos and Mount Madonna have already earned their tickets to CCS, and it’s possible the teams could meet for a fifth time there. By then, the Hawks surely would like to have beaten the Mariners at least once this season, though coach Nate Rockhold said he isn’t concerned desperation will impede his team’s play.
“For me, it’s (more about) having a chance, as a coach. For the seniors, I’m sure it’s more important to beat them,” Rockhold said.
Yet after taking Aptos the distance all season, he added, “They’ve put themselves in a position to win.”
PCS (15-8) almost did the dirty work for the Hawks, taking a set off Aptos for the third time this season in an exciting, hard-hitting and well-played match. In the end, though, the more-experienced Mariners shone through.
Aptos’ Kacey Losik finished with 16 kills, six digs and three aces and brother Kolby added 11 kills, 21 assists and eight digs. Josh Townsend chipped in eight kills with no errors and three aces.
Pumas coach Scotty Sanborn said junior Wyatt Harrison and Reid Lyons, his sole senior on the court, stood out in the all-out upset effort.
“We wanted to be the best team at the end of the year, not in the middle,” Sanborn said. “It showed a lot of heart for them to come out and swing like that.”
Contact Julie Jag at 831-706-3257.
