SOUTHERN SECTION 5-A GIRLS’ VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS : No.1 Mira Costa Tops Corona del Marin Final

In the end, the team that supposed to win did win. It won because it had been there last year, because it had more experience and it had the confidence and poise that comes with being the nation’s No. 1 team.

Mira Costa High School capped a 23-0 season with a 15-5, 13-15, 15-10, 15-13 victory over Corona del Mar in the Southern Section 5-A girls’ volleyball final.

The Mustangs, ranked No. 1 by Volleyball Monthly, did it every which way. Winning in a breeze in the first game, blowing a 13-8 lead in the second to lose, blowing another big lead in the third game only to rally for four consecutive points and the victory. In the fourth and final game, they came back from a 13-8 deficit to score seven consecutive points and take home Mira Costa’s sixth Southern Section volleyball title in this decade and eighth overall.

“We deserve to be No. 1,” said Dae Lea Aldrich, Mira Costa coach.

And Kristal Atwood and Piper Hahn deserve a lot of the credit. Atwood, a 6-foot-1 middle blocker, had 24 kills and Hahn had a career-high 45 assists. It was Hahn who served the ace that clinched the match and championship for Mira Costa.

Painful as it must be to have come so close to beating the nation’s No. 1 team, only to watch it slip away, Corona del Mar can take some solace in the fact that it is almost a mirror image of Mira Costa last season.

That team, made up entirely of underclassmen, advanced to the final where it lost Irvine.

This season’s Corona del Mar team, has only three seniors.

“It was the maturity of their seniors that overcame our sophomores and juniors,” said Charlie Brande, Corona del Mar coach. “I always said the team with the most seniors would win.”

Those three seniors accounted for themselves very well.

Danielle Everett had a match-high 27 kills, Lara Carlsen had eight kills and seven blocks and 5-4 Krista Hartling, who sparked Corona del Mar in that fourth game with four kills, had six for the match.