Experience carries St. Francis volleyball past La Cañada
LA CAÑADA — Backed by an experienced squad including five seniors, the St. Francis High volleyball team has high expectations entering the season.
The Golden Knights would like to contend in the rugged Mission League and appear in the CIF playoffs for the first time in five seasons.
St. Francis turned to its experience during a nonleague home match against La Cañada.
Senior outside hitter Sean Stephen finished with a match-high 17 kills and Cole Gaabriel-Rebmann added nine to propel the Golden Knights to a 25-13, 25-12, 25-22 win against the Spartans in a season-opening contest for both teams.
“We were finally able to play today and that’s something we’ve not been able to replicate at practice,” said St. Francis Coach Mark Frazee, whose team finished fourth in league last season. “It was nice to see them compete at a different level and you could see the experience we have.
“I thought our defense was good and we got passing and pretty good hitting out of this group. We definitely have a nice combination of seniors to go along with our younger players.”
The Spartans, on the other hand, are rebuilding under a new coaching crew after four key starters graduated.
“We made a lot of silly mistakes, ones that are avoidable,” said Spartans co-Coach Carrie Saks, who shares the coaching chores with David Simonyan. “We have to work some more on things like serving and not touching the net.
“We did OK. We’re learning how to work well together. The enthusiasm has been awesome.”
St. Francis took control early in the first set, jumping out to a 9-0 lead. Stephen had five kills in that stretch.
“It was definitely a good feeling to get back out there and play in a game,” Stephen said. “This might be the most experienced team that we’ve had the last few years and we want to make it to the playoffs.
“We will still need to work on some different things, but our passing was on and we were able to get a lot of great sets from Joey Thompson.”
Thompson finished with 27 assists.
The Golden Knights extended their lead to 20-8 on a kill by Stephen and closed out the set on a kill by Gabriel-Rebmann.
An ace from David Johnson gave the Golden Knights a 7-4 advantage in the second set. Stephen followed with a kill to extend the lead to 15-9 and ended it with a kill down the left side to give St. Francis a 2-0 lead in games.
The Spartans, who won the Rio Hondo League championship last season for the first time since 2006, played considerably better in the final set.
