Thousand Oaks Shuts Down Newbury Park in Volleyball

Julie Chellevold can fool you. She’s 5-7 and looks as if she should be shaking pompons instead of spiking volleyballs. But she does the latter well.

“She’s the girl we go to,” said Thousand Oaks Coach Ron Beick, whose team improved to 10-4 overall and 7-3 in the Marmonte League after beating Newbury Park, 15-13, 15-5, 16-14, on Tuesday night. “When she’s on, we always play well. If she’s off, it can kill us.”

And Chellevold was on, leading Thousand Oaks with 15 kills.

“She simply played great tonight,” Beick said.

So did the rest of the Lancers. They combined an array of aces, a dominant net game and clutch hitting to stay a game behind Westlake, whom they play Thursday.

“Now, we finally have a shot at first place,” Beick said. “Tonight we played real smooth and with confidence.”

Newbury Park dropped to 8-5, 5-4 in league, but still has a chance to make the playoffs.

“I sensed a real mental fatigue . . . even before we played,” said Newbury Park Coach Joe Wortmann. “I think the problem tonight is they were not disciplined out there.

“When you play power teams, the key is having each player being in a certain position. Too many times they wouldn’t be there. Those four or five points, and we’d win a game.”

In the first game, Thousand Oaks’ Kristin McIntyre and Kristin Cleary controlled the net and helped the Lancers take an 8-1 lead. Newbury Park answered with eight straight points, but behind McIntyre and Cleary, Thousand Oaks came back to win by two.

Chellevold served seven consecutive points, including three aces, to help Thousand Oaks breeze through the second game.

The final game was a seesaw contest, one in which hitting errors doomed Newbury Park after rallying from a 9-6 deficit to lead 14-13.

“If they had won the third game I would have bet it would have gone to five,” said Beick. “Fortunately, we were able to relax a lot more.”

Sophomore Shannon Mutch led Newbury Park with 10 digs, teammates Marlo Corimer had six kills and Karen Austin six blocks.