Southern Section 4-A Volleyball Championship : Loyola Handles Newport Harbor in Three Games to Win the Title

After a season’s serving of balance among boys’ volleyball teams, Loyola High School won the Southern Section 4-A championship with a most convincing 15-11, 15-7, 15-6 victory over Newport Harbor Saturday night at Westminster High.

Loyola, which was moved up to the 4-A this season, has won five Southern Section titles in the last six years. The previous four were in the 3-A.

This was supposed to be, and for the most part had been, a season of balance among a lot of very good 4-A teams.

In Orange County alone, there were co-champions in the Sunset (Edison, Marina) and Sea View (Newport Harbor, Corona del Mar) leagues.

Three 4-A quarterfinal matches went five games. Newport Harbor (14-4), which lost the first two games, needed five to beat Woodbridge.

The exception was Loyola’s four-set victory over Laguna Beach.

In fact, Loyola (20-0) lost only two games during the playoffs, the other coming against Dos Pueblos in the first round.

“This is a dream team,” Roger Yano, Loyola coach, said. “It’s our most powerful team for hitting and blocking and overall size.”

What made Loyola so effective Saturday, and the entire season, is the remarkable versatility of its six starters. Yano used just seven players in the game, but each exhibited strength in all phases, especially hitting.

“With other teams you pick out a weakness and play to that,” Dan Glenn, Newport Harbor coach, said. “But they don’t seem to have any. They’re so powerful, they hit harder than any team we’ve see this year.”

And everyone hit Saturday. Duncan Blackman, a 6-foot 5-inch middle blocker, had six kills in the first game but only one in the second as setters Chris Wrede (6-3) and Bill Bergstrom combined for nine.

In the last game, Bergstrom had four kills and two blocks. Outside hitter Jimmy Klein (6-3) had four kills and a service ace. Blackman got three more kills. Outside hitter John Anselmo ended the match with his 10th kill of the night.

Newport Harbor didn’t have much of a chance at making a run. The Sailors’ longest was three points early in the last game.

“We couldn’t get anything going against them for any amount of time,” Glenn said. “We’d start, then one of them would make a kill and, all of sudden, boom, it’s over.”

Loyola, which trailed early in the last game, finished it by scoring nine consecutive points.

“This team really played inspired,” Yano said. “I think it’s fortunate for us that this was the team that made the move up to 4-A.”

Fortunate for Loyola, but not the rest of the division.