At Marina, Volleyball Coach Andy Read Was Up Against a Season of Rebuilding : Refining Raw Material to Get a Big Job Done

About a third into the season, the Marina High School boys’ volleyball team finds itself near the top in Orange County. The Vikings (4-2) won the Orange County Championships tournament at Estancia High a little more than a week ago to stake a claim as one of the county’s best.

And gee, all it took for this to happen was a rebuilt team, including a guy who had never played the game, and a revamped offense, decided upon at 2 a.m.

Marina advanced to the semifinals of the Southern Section 4-A playoffs last season, losing to eventual champion Newport Harbor.

Half the starters from that team graduated, including top hitters Alan Knipe and Ben LeFrancois, leaving Marina vulnerable at the net.

Andy Read, Marina coach, brought up junior varsity players such as 6-foot 6-inch Dwayne Cameron to fill the void. He also persuaded Steve Guild (6-6), an all-Southern Section basketball player to join the team. Guild’s volleyball experience was mainly of the family-picnic variety.

Both Guild and Cameron are starting for Marina, though Guild is usually replaced when his turn to rotate into the back row comes.

The height at the net, a luxury not afforded Marina last season, has enabled it to handle some heavy hitters.

Playing against Woodbridge in the final of the Orange County Championships, Marina shutdown 6-9 Adam Keefe, who had been unstoppable in the tournament. Read said Cameron’s hands were swollen after going against Keefe. Cameron remembers them just being beaten red.

“I know one thing for sure,” Cameron said. “That boy (Keefe) has some strength.”

Marina relies on three returning starters from last year’s team--Dave Buehring and Ron Browning and Doug Partis.

Buehring, an all-Sunset League goalie on the Marina soccer team, is the team’s setter.

“One of the most innovative setters around,” said Charlie Brande, Corona del Mar coach. “He gets the ball to the guy who should have it.”

Buehring, who became a setter last season as a way to crack the starting lineup, was named the most valuable player of the Orange County Championships.

Learning the position has been frustrating at times for Buehring. Last season Buehring tended to hold the ball too long on his fingertips before setting it.

“He got called for it a lot,” Read said.

So Buehring has gone about speeding up his release.

“I’ve been called for it a couple times,” he said. “But nothing like last year.”

Last year, Buehring was the lone setter in the Marina offense. But for the first five matches of this season, Read switched to a two setter offense, using Browning in the other spot.

Read said he did it because he thought it would give his team greater flexibility and allow Browning to develop skills for college.

But Marina was only 3-2 with the new offense.

“We couldn’t finish off points,” Partis said. “The two-setter offense was like no offense. We couldn’t put the ball away.”

After a frustrating loss to Newport Harbor, in which Marina had led 2-0, Read decided to make some changes. He realized that with Browning setting the ball, Marina had lacked a put-away man on the left side.

At about two in the morning following the Newport Harbor game, after laboring over it, Read decided to return to the 5-1 he ran last season. What followed was a victory over Irvine and then the success at the Orange County Championships.

“The transition was pretty smooth,” said Browning, who transferred to Marina from La Quinta as a junior. “We had all played the 5-1 last year so there was really no big adjustment. Just kind of fine tuning.”

Which brings us to the Sunset League, which opens league play Wednesday. Considered the county’s toughest league this season, the Sunset features Marina, Edison and Huntington Beach, all ranked in the top 10 in Orange County.

Edison reached the final of the prestigious Dos Pueblos tournament in Santa Barbara. And both Edison and Huntington Beach have beaten Newport Harbor.

Marina is defending league champion, after going undefeated last season. It opens against Edison at home Wednesday.

“You can’t really say it’s the biggest game of the season,” Read said. “But if we win, it’s a giant step in the right direction.”