BOYS’ VOLLEYBALL PLAYOFFS : La Quinta Fails to Stop Los Altos’ Heavy Hitter

Playing in the Garden Grove League, the La Quinta High School boys’ volleyball team didn’t play against any team with a hitter as powerful as Los Altos’ Raymond Thorsky.

And the Aztecs’ introduction to the 6-foot-4 senior Tuesday night wasn’t a welcome one.

Thorsky had 31 kills to lead Los Altos to a 14-16, 15-6, 15-8, 15-7 victory over La Quinta in the second round of the Southern Section 3-A playoffs at the La Quinta gym.

“Thorsky’s as good a hitter as we’ve seen,” La Quinta Coach Larry James said. “Of course, we play in the Garden Grove League and I don’t mean to disparage the league, but he’s better than anyone else we’ve played against.”

Los Altos Coach Dana Brega said Thorsky “had an off-night.”

“He usually plays a lot better,” Brega said. “He can hit better than that. I thought he was a little inconsistent.”

Thorsky had 10 kills and a stuff block in the second game as Los Altos erased a 3-0 deficit. Mike Allen added five of his 15 kills in the game.

James said La Quinta’s short lineup--the Aztecs have only one player taller than 6-3--struggled against Los Altos’ tall front line, which included 6-6 Brian Burgess and the 6-4 Thorsky.

La Quinta didn’t appear to be intimidated by the height disadvantage early. The Aztecs rallied from a 5-1 deficit in the first game behind seven kills by Green to take a 14-10 lead.

But Los Altos fought off four game points and eventually tied the game at 14-14. But a Los Altos hitting error and a kill by Chris Doherty gave La Quinta the victory.

“Los Altos started playing a lot better defense after the first game,” James said. “They just stood around a lot the first game.”

Brega agreed.

“We start slow sometimes,” Brega said. “We haven’t been doing that a lot lately. We didn’t practice (Monday) and it seemed like we hadn’t played in a long time.”

Paul Price had 16 kills and four blocks, Green had 13 kills and Doherty added 11 for La Quinta.

“I think we played reasonably well,” James said. “We’re not very big and they were. We didn’t pass well in the middle games and I think we lost some of our composure at the end.”

La Quinta hit two flat spots in the final two games.

Los Altos built an 8-1 lead in the third game, but La Quinta capitalized on four errors and cut the deficit to 9-7. But a kill and a block by Burgess helped Los Altos pull away for a 15-8 win.

Burgess’ blocking and five La Quinta errors helped Los Altos pull away from a 6-6 tie in the fourth game.

In the 2-A division:

Santa Margarita 3, Simi Valley 2--Zak Pelzel had 13 kills and eight blocks as host Santa Margarita (16-4) rallied for a 12-15, 12-15, 15-12, 15-9, 15-13 victory.