El Toro Beats Poway in Division I First Round

Poway fought with kid gloves. El Toro fought with Kid Galahad. And when it was over, the more experienced school advanced to the second round of the Southern California Division I Volleyball Championships.

El Toro, the second-place team from the Southern Section, scored a 9-15, 15-10, 15-4, 15-2 victory over the San Diego Section champs. The Chargers won on the strength of their maturity.

“We need to be a little tougher mentally and physically,” Poway Coach Lisa Reis said. “You saw it in spurts tonight.

“But their best players are seniors and ours are sophomores.”

Poway played to its youthful potential in much of the first two games, but let long rallies and failed opportunities get the best of them as the match wore on.

El Toro jumped to a 6-0 lead but Poway rallied back. Trailing 8-5, Lindsey Kamen served eight points in a string of 10 unanswered points for the Titans.

“I think they got the early lead and relaxed, they thought it was going to be easy,” El Toro Coach Mike Jagd said.

Poway came from behind in the second game, too, rallying from an 8-3 deficit to tie the score at 8-8, but then the inexperience showed. El Toro’s offense scored only one of its final seven points in Game 2 and Poway never recovered from the letdown, falling behind in Game 3, 6-1 and 9-2. Game 4 was never in doubt.

Two seniors led El Toro hitters. Jaime Smith had 15 kills and Wendy Balut had 13. Junior Amber Woodcock came off the bench and had six kills and eight blocks.

Poway’s Kara Milling had 18 kills, but no one else had more than five.

“That’s the best group of sophomores I’ve ever seen in my life, in either club or high school,” Jagd said of Poway. “I would be willing to predict right now that in two years, they are going to be state champions.”