Southern Section Volleyball Playoffs : Finger-Pointing Spurs Harvard to Easy Win

Non-scoring points had as much of an impact as points of the more traditional kind during Harvard High’s 15-12, 15-8, 15-6 victory over La Canada in a 3-A Division match Thursday night at Harvard.

Bobby Hillman, Harvard’s all-league outside hitter, started slowly in the first game. A few of his spikes were blocked and others went wide.

But Hillman got his swing back after La Canada’s Matt Tanaka pointed out what Hillman was doing wrong by pointing a finger at Hillman after stuffing a spike.

The two players exchanged stares and comments under the net and Hillman came out of the exchange a new hitter, finishing with 30 kills.

Harvard (16-2) will play Windward at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at a site to be determined.

“They don’t like to have fingers pointed at them and when the fingers were pointed, they responded,” Harvard Coach Mark Zalin said of his players.

The Saracens, playing without two injured starters, began slowly in each game and had to rally to beat La Canada (10-9), which concluded its first year of interscholastic competition.

“We played as poorly as we’ve played all year,” Zalin said. “Not to take anything away from La Canada, but we played bad.”

Harvard took all three games after La Canada had seemingly built big enough leads to win.

La Canada rallied from a 4-0 deficit in the first game to take a 12-7 lead, jumped ahead, 5-2, in the second game and led, 6-0, in the third game. But the Spartans folded each time.

“We had a really flat start,” Zalin said. “But once we got going, we were rolling.”

Harvard’s slow start was forgivable considering the Saracens were forced to start Andres Conca, a freshman middle blocker who had never played a varsity match.

Although Conca missed his first few kills, by the third game he was playing strongly.

“He did a great job,” Hillman said.