Granada Hills Advances in Spite of Itself : Sluggish Highlanders Sweep Narbonne to Open City Section Volleyball Playoffs

The absence of three starters clearly affected Granada Hills High in the opening round of the City Section boys’ volleyball playoffs Tuesday at Granada Hills.

But after the Highlanders had posted a less-than-impressive 15-2, 15-13, 15-8 sweep of Narbonne, Coach Tom Harp bemoaned a familiar concern for his team’s inconsistent play.

“It’s been a problem all season . . . us losing our concentration,” Harp said.

Against Narbonne, however, the Highlanders could afford their lapses and the excused absences of three starters--one because of illness and two others for scholastic testing.

Granada Hills (15-2), which also swept Narbonne (6-11) during the regular season, raced to an 8-0 lead to put the first game out of reach.

“We got off to a bad start, “ Narbonne Coach Jim Backstrom said. “But our luck changed in the final two games.”

Granada Hills, after dominating the first game on the strength of outside hitters Sam Goldman and Dan Govenar, who finished with 11 and eight kills, respectively, struggled before finishing off Narbonne.

The Gauchos, led by outside hitter Tyrone Gaines, forged ties of 6-6 and 9-9 in the second game. Gaines had five of his nine kills in the game. Govenar, however, led Granada Hills to leads of 12-9 and 14-13 before the Highlanders closed out the game on a Narbonne passing error.

“I was very disappointed that we didn’t win game two,” Backstrom said. “I give the team credit for hanging in there, though, Granada Hills is a good team.”

In the third game, Narbonne rode the hitting of Cuong Nguyen to a 7-5 lead. But Dane Rood and Goldman followed with two kills each as Granada Hills regained command and went on to close out the match.

The Highlanders will face Westchester, one of four seeded teams that received a first-round bye, Thursday at Westchester.

“We have a lot of things to work on before the Westchester game Thursday,” Harp said. “They’re a strong offensive team and our blocking will be critical.”

PLAYOFF ROUNDUP

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