Costa Mesa boys’ volleyball falls in five sets at Westminster
The Costa Mesa High boys’ volleyball team has played five best-of-five nonleague matches in the young season.
The Mustangs have made things interesting. Wednesday’s match at Westminster was the third to go to five sets.
Costa Mesa has confidence it can get it done in longer matches, but ultimately it was unable to complete the comeback and register a third straight victory.
Junior outside hitter Matthew Andrews had 14 kills as Westminster posted a 25-10, 25-16, 23-25, 23-25, 15-6 victory.
Costa Mesa battled back but struggled in serve receive. Westminster (6-4) produced 13 service aces, compared to three for the Mustangs.
In the first set, Westminster junior Anh Hoang served the final nine points. The run included five aces, part of Hoang’s seven for the match.
Senior Thomas Phan had 13 kills and five aces for the winners.
“That’s our biggest thing right now, that we’re not adjusting well,” Costa Mesa coach Todd Hanson said. “They served us really well short. I kept telling the kids we have to shift, but I just have a couple of kids who don’t have a ton of experience … We have a lot of multi-sport athletes, and a lot of them are still just getting in the flow.”
Senior middle blocker Ethan Elliott had a team-high seven kills for Costa Mesa, while sophomore opposite Zach Fletcher registered six kills and 12 blocks. Senior Osman Hefner chipped in six kills, senior Jason Chiang had five and senior Josh Barton chipped in four.
Junior setter Andrew Pham had 30 assists for the Mustangs.
Hanson said his team, playing without senior standout Jonathan Barton (knee), is a bit tired after playing matches on three consecutive days last week and again this week, a run that concludes when the Mustangs play at Katella on Thursday. Hanson said the Mustangs hope to have Barton back by their Orange Coast League opener on March 19, when they host Santa Ana.
Hanson highlighted the play of Fletcher, who played on the frosh-soph team for Costa Mesa last season.
“He’s a great athlete, he just doesn’t have much volleyball experience,” Hanson said. “He really stepped up for us. He touched so many balls. He was really the only one for us that blocked anything tonight.”
After falling behind by two sets, Costa Mesa won a hard-fought Game 3 that was tied as late as 21-21. Fletcher provided the clinching kill.
From 24-19, it took Costa Mesa six set points to close out Game 4, but the Mustangs finally did so when Westminster missed a serve at 24-23.
However, the Lions righted the ship, jumping out to a 5-1 lead in Game 5. Costa Mesa cut its deficit to 7-4 but couldn’t get closer.
Westminster junior Huy Van stood out at setter for Lions, who got seven kills from both Hoang and junior Charlie Huynh.
It was the second straight five-set win over an Orange Coast League opponent for Westminster. Coach Kilisi Vailu’u said the Lions rallied from a 14-7 fifth-set deficit to post a dramatic victory at Santa Ana on Tuesday.
Westminster plays its third Orange Coast League foe of the week on Friday, when it hosts Orange.
“We don’t have big kids, and none of the kids play club,” Vailu’u said. “There’s no club players at all. I try to work on the skills that are going to help them a lot. If you miss a serve, that’s a point … since we don’t have big hitters, we try to get them to serve well. They’re doing OK. If you don’t have the size, you’ve got to do something else.”
Twitter: @mjszabo
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