College Notebook : Lunch Dates Pay Off for Grossmont Volleyball

Colleen Suwara has added a new twist to the business lunch.

Suwara faced a roster of 11 freshmen when the Grossmont College women’s volleyball team started practice this year after winning the state title last season.

So, she had this idea of mandatory lunches for her players.

“Nobody even knew everybody’s name so I made them have lunch buddies,” Suwara said. “I thought of it as I was driving to practice. They really got into it. It worked. They had friends right away.”

Suwara paired her players with a different teammate every day for lunch.

The lunches seemed to have worked as Grossmont College is close to having its fourth consecutive Pacific Coast Conference title wrapped up.

Grossmont, ranked second in the state, is 13-3 overall and 8-0 in the conference. Grossmont’s 3 losses have come against top-ranked Golden West. Grossmont has defeated Golden West once.

Once Suwara got her team on a first-name basis with each other, she had to get the players together on the court.

“I’m pleasantly surprised we’re doing so well,” Suwara said. “I knew going into the year I had only 1 sophomore and she left the team.”

But the Grossmont volleyball program has surprised a few people since Suwara and assistant coaches Steve Mitchell and Paul Tucker took over 4 years ago. In that span, Grossmont is 43-1 in the conference and has not lost since Suwara’s first season.

Grossmont won the state title last season with players primarily from Grossmont League high schools. But once Grossmont had started winning, Suwara received attention was outside the area.

This season, Grossmont has 7 players from San Diego County schools and 5 from out of the area, including players from Oregon and Nevada.

If Grossmont wins the conference title, it will get a bye in the first round of the playoffs and then play host to a second-round match on Nov. 29. If the Griffins win, they will be back in the 8-team state tournament in San Jose.

Notes

Duffy Daugherty of Palomar College bolstered his lead for the state passing title by completing 26 of 51 passes for 445 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 54-28 loss to Mt. San Antonio Saturday. Daugherty, who attended Fallbrook High School, is has completed 190 of 340 passes for 2,398 yards and 16 touchdowns in 8 games. Daugherty was also the state leader in total offense entering Saturday’s game. . . .The UC San Diego men’s water polo team is favored to win the Western Water Polo Assn. tournament, which starts Friday at the Air Force Academy. The Tritons are ranked 10th in the country and are the only Division III school ranked in the top 10. The tournament is the unofficial championship for non-Division I schools. The NCAA has only one tournament for men’s water polo and it’s dominated by Division I teams.