San Diego Section Volleyball : Poway Serves Itself Another Championship

For the past three weeks, the Poway High School girls’ volleyball team has spent its lunch breaks serving.

And not in the cafeteria.

Top-seeded Poway dished up a 16-14, 15-11, 15-8 victory over No. 2 Sweetwater for its third straight San Diego Section 3-A title at Point Loma High School Saturday night.

The Titans (23-1) used nine service aces to win a match that was dominated by the serve.

“We have been practicing our serve at lunch,” Poway Coach Lisa Reis said. “It was a serving match for the first two games.”

Poway came out shaky, but rallied from a 14-11 deicit in Game 1 to win, 16-14, on a kill by Cheri Boyer, who led all players with 14 kills and five aces.

Poway then used its power offense to win the match. Middle blocker Deanne Anastas had nine kills for Poway.

The Taeatafa sisters, Karen and Carolyn, led Sweetwater (30-2) with 12 kills each.

Sweetwater will play La Jolla, the 2-A runner-up, at 3 p.m. Monday at La Jolla. The winner advances to the state tournament along with Poway and USDHS.

2-A: USDHS 3, La Jolla 2

When Rob Gorney became the University of San Diego High coach this year, his first job was to break some old habits.

“These girls had a psychological block against La Jolla,” Gorney said. “The first day of practice, I told them, ‘La Jolla is going to be beaten.’ ”

USDHS dissolved its mental block and ended La Jolla’s streak of four straight chammpionships with a 15-5, 7-15, 16-14, 13-15, 15-10 win in the 2-A championship match.

Only last week top-seeded La Jolla (20-3) had beaten USDHS (20-4), 3-0, to decide the City Western League’s No. 1 playoff representative. The teams tied for the league title with 9-1 records.

“We weren’t really excited about it (the league playoff),” said senior outside hitter Jenna Borer, who had seen La Jolla win three league and 2-A titles. “But today was CIF. It was the first time our school had been in this.”

USDHS didn’t look as if it was in its first championship match, as it rallied from a 14-11 deficit to win the third game and then held off a La Jolla charge in the final game after taking a 9-1 lead.

Borer led all players with 27 kills. Middle blocker Amy Randel paced La Jolla with 20 kills and 7 blocks.

1-A: Parker 3, Calipatria 0

Francis Parker (27-2) rolled to a 15-3, 15-3, 15-10 victory over Calipatria (17-6) to win its second straight Section 1-A title and its fourth in five years.

Tracy Hughes led Francis Parker with 20 kills and Lauren Keyser had four service aces.