SF Valley/North girls’ volleyball: Wolverines have no reason to worry

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His team may have been a little ‘jittery’ at times, but Harvard-Westlake Coach Adam Black was as mellow as a Bobby McFerrin concert heading into the Wolverines’ Division I-A final against Flintridge Sacred Heart on Saturday.

‘It’s my first year coaching here and I have a clean slate,’ Black said. ‘So I didn’t really have anything to worry about because I inherited a pretty good team.’

The Wolverines showed everybody just how good they are, coming back from a first-game flop to defeat the Mission League-rival Tologs for the third time this season and win the program’s first divisional title since 2001.

As usual, Princeton-bound Cathryn Quinn and Megan Norton had big performances, but it was the play of Emily Waterhouse and the Krystle Higgins that really stood out. Waterhouse led the team with 19 kills and Higgins recorded seven blocks to spearhead a phenomenal effort that allowed Harvard-Westlake to stay in control over the final three games.

I’m sure after seeing a match like that, Black will get more than a couple hours of shut-eye tonight heading into his team’s Division III Southern California Regional playoff against visiting La Jolla on Tuesday. I know the Vikings have a top-notch spiker and blocker in 6-foot-2 sophomore Haley Cameron, but the top-seeded Wolverines have played and beaten better teams. There should be no worries about Harvard-Westlake’s 16-match winning streak coming to an end in this one.

And for all of you out there who aren’t coaching Harvard-Westlake volleyball, here’s some ‘80s-style nerve tonic thanks to YouTube:

-- Austin Knoblauch