Owls waste little time in sweep

Victor Bryant, SB News-Press Correpsondent
The late arrival of the Providence boys volleyball team from Burbank delayed the start of its CIF-SS Division 5 second round match with Laguna Blanca by 45 minutes, but the host Owls ended it early with a 25-15, 25-20, 25-20 sweep on Thursday night.

Laguna Blanca was champing at the bit to start the match and, despite the excessive warmup, had enough in the tank to stave off Providence in the crucial moments throughout the match.

"That's a long warmup for a bunch of high school guys that are jacked up to play a second-round game," Laguna Blanca coach Dillan Bennett said. "Fortunately we came out and played really well in game one. I think our fatigue showed towards the end of game three."

After Laguna Blanca cruised in set one, Providence came out with increased intensity in set two and jumped out to a 5-3 lead. However, the Owls responded with an 8-0 run highlighted by four kills from middle blocker/opposite Chris Constantino.

"I just like to go up and hit aggressive I don't like to think when I play because that's when I start making mistakes," said Costantino, who finished with a team-high nine kills. "That happened to us against Arrowhead and that's one of the reasons that we lost that game. When I went into this game I had the mindset reach high and snap hard because nobody is going to stop me."

The Pioneers slowly chipped away at their deficit in set two and eventually climbed to within 22-20 on an ace serve by Jason Nunez. With the set two in the balance Providence closed with two mishandled ball violations followed by a net violation that clinched the set in favor of Laguna Blanca.

"I actually don't think we matched (their energy). They were far more fired up," Bennett said. "It's easy for a team to get fired up when they can see their season disappearing before their eyes."

Set three began in much the same manner as set two with providence as the aggressor. Laguna Blanca found itself trailing 7-3 before eventually catching Providence at 11-11. The Owls took control of the third set by taking advantage of their superior size at the net.

Constantino and Jack Copeland combined for three consecutive blocks that that turned a 14-13 Laguna Blanca deficit into a 16-14 lead.

"The blocking really helped our energy," Bennett said. "If it weren't for the blocks and an average call by our referee we probably wouldn't have come back and we'd be playing game four right now. We will work on that energy thing and hopefully we'll be well rested for our quarterfinal match Saturday."

The Owls clinched set three and the match on a spike off the block by Cole Strachan. Copeland was right behind Constantino with eight kills and Ryan Bickett finished with seven kills and 13 digs to go along with excellent passing.

"In the first game we just try to fill them out," Constantino said. When that second game comes around and we really need to side out I'm usually the go-to guy,"

Laguna Blanca will travel to face Ontario Christian on Saturday in the quarterfinals after Ontario's 3-0 sweep over West Covina High School on Thursday.
Back