4-A Volleyball : Blocking Their Way to a Title : Corona del Mar Tops No. 1 Mira Costa With Solid Defense

Corona del Mar High School, sparked by the blocking of Jason Perkins and Chad Steelberg, defeated Mira Costa, 16-18, 15-12, 15-6, 15-8, in the Southern Section 4-A boys’ volleyball championship match Saturday night at Marina High.

Perkins, a 6-foot-4 middle blocker, and Steelberg, a 6-1 outside hitter, led a Corona del Mar blocking barrage that brought the team back after losing a draining first game. Corona del Mar had 34 stuff-blocks, including eight in the fourth and deciding game.

Perkins led the team with 11 and Steelberg had nine.

“We really focused on our blocking,” said Charlie Brande, Corona del Mar’s coach. “After that first game, we started reading their setters much better.”

Corona del Mar (16-2) had three game points in that first game but couldn’t put Mira Costa away, losing two possible game points on unforced errors.

Mira Costa (21-1), which was the playoff’s No. 1 seeded team, won the game with a block of its own, this one by Zach Small.

Brande said he wasn’t concerned about his team letting down after such a tough loss.

“The first game let us figure out what they were doing,” Brande said. “We hadn’t seen them all year, it took us that game to get to know their personnel.”

Mira Costa took a quick 3-0 lead, but Corona del Mar came back with a 6-1 run to take a 6-4 lead. Corona del Mar took as much as a 9-5 lead, but Mira Costa rallied behind the hitting of left-hander David Swatik to tie the score at 12-12.

But Mira Costa was called for a positioning violation to give Corona del Mar a 13-12 lead. Chris Pliha’s block gave Corona del Mar a 14-12 lead, and another block, this one by Perkins and Herrington, won the game for Corona del Mar.

Given the competition and the time--the first two games took 1 hour 20 minutes to play--the match figured to be just getting warm. But Corona del Mar took control of the match in the third game, winning in just 20 minutes.

As the Corona del Mar block became more and more effective, Mira Costa seemed to overcompensate, making seven hitting errors in the third game.

Corona del Mar took an 8-5 lead in the third game but was tied at 8-8. Corona del Mar went on to score the seven final points, the last, fittingly enough, coming on a block by Pliha and Steelberg.

“We just lost our composure in that first game,” Steelberg said. “After that we just listened to Charlie and played the way we should.”

Matt Herrington had 22 kills for Corona del Mar, Pliha had 20, Matt Cwiertnia 14 and Perkins 13.

David Swatik had 16 kills for Mira Costa and Jason Stimpfig had 14.