SOUTHERN SECTION VOLLEYBALL PLAYOFFS : Solid Blocking Attack by Top-Seeded San Marcos Eliminates Marina

Marina High School’s volleyball team found its path to the Southern Section 4-A semifinals blocked in a big way by San Marcos Friday night at Santa Barbara.

The top-seeded Royals used a solid blocking attack to eliminate the unseeded Vikings, 15-8, 15-8, 15-5, in the quarterfinals.

San Marcos (15-1) advances to Wednesday night’s semifinal against Woodbridge, which won, 15-4, 15-7, 15-9. The Royals avenged a 17-15 loss to Marina (13-5) in the semifinals of the Dos Pueblos tournament this season.

San Marcos had eight blocks, including three each by setter Todd Rogers and outside hitter Gabe Salvador, and slowed Marina’s hitting trio of Dennis Winners, John Mull and Brant Shelor.

San Marcos Coach Jon Lee said the Royals had a simple strategy: shut down Winners.

Winners, who was slowed by a sore shoulder in the third game, finished with 17 kills. Shelor had 14 kills and Mull added nine.

“Marina has one stellar player with Winners,” Lee said, “and we wanted to make sure he didn’t take our blockers by surprise. We knew that Marina had one big gun, and they’d want to shoot it a lot.”

Marina Coach John Burns said the Vikings were inconsistent. They had 16 serving errors and 13 hitting errors.

“This match was a throwback to our five-game Huntington Beach matches earlier in the year,” Burns said. “We were up and down the whole match. We were steady in our first two (Southern Section) tournament games, but not today.”

The inconsistency showed in the first game. Marina cut a 6-1 deficit to 7-6, but San Marcos scored eight of the next 10 points to win it, 15-8. Marina had seven serving errors and five hitting errors in the game.

Marina built a 6-3 lead in the second game before San Marcos, led by Clay Holdren’s six kills, rallied to tie it, 8-8.

The Royals finished strong, going on a 7-0 run to win the game.

The third game was no contest. San Marcos built leads of 7-2 and 10-3 on the way to a 15-5 victory.

Salvador had 16 kills and Holdren added 13 to lead a balanced San Marcos attack. Scott Anderson had 10 kills and Mike Darling added five for Marina.

Burns offered no excuses after the match. Marina made a two-hour drive to Santa Barbara for the match, which was played at 5 p.m. so the Marina players could attend their prom dance later in the evening.

“I tried to get the prom out of their minds,” Burns said. “But I’m sure it was back there somewhere.”

In other 4-A matches:

Woodbridge 3, Glendale 0--Todd Beebe had 25 kills and Ryan Rauch had 10 kills and 55 assists for host Woodbridge (16-4), which won, 15-4, 15-7, 15-9.

Newport Harbor 3, Loyola 2--Beau Sheward had 39 kills, Mark McAnlis had 27 kills and Justin McIntee had 18 kills and 12 stuff blocks for third-seeded Newport Harbor (16-3), which won 16-14, 8-15, 15-13, 14-16, 15-10. Host Loyola finished 20-3.

In 3-A:

Long Beach Poly 3, Esperanza 1--Long Beach Poly handed Esperanza its first loss of the season, 6-15, 15-7, 15-10, 16-14. Brad Goldston had 19 kills and Jason Galeener had 12 for visiting Esperanza (18-1).

In 2-A:

Whittier Christian 3, Santa Maria St. Joseph 0--Adam McIlhenny had 21 kills, four blocks and 10 digs, Aaron Sohegian had 18 kills, four blocks and six digs and Brandon Blevins had 12 kills, six blocks and served six consecutive points in the final game for visiting Whittier Christian (16-2). The Heralds won 15-3, 15-5, 15-13.