Hart Ends Canyon’s Volleyball Mastery

The Hart High boys’ volleyball team ended four years of frustration against Canyon with a 17-15, 15-12, 15-12 Golden League win Wednesday.

The visiting Indians (3-2, 1-0 in league play) came from behind in the first two games and hung on at the end to defeat four-time Golden League champion Canyon for the first time in nine meetings.

Hart senior middle blocker Jason Horneman had been on the losing end against Canyon (2-4, 1-1) since he was a freshman, so the Indians’ win over their archrival tasted especially sweet.

“We’ve lost three years now, and we knew this was our big chance,” Horneman said. “It feels really nice.”

Horneman sparked Hart from a 6-2 deficit in the first game and served as the Indians’ emotional leader throughout the match, guiding a balanced attack with six kills and six blocks. In a match full of taunting, Horneman and his teammates didn’t let the chance slip by to tell their opponents that Hart had the better team.

Hart’s mistakes nearly cost it the first game. The Indians, ranked eighth in the Southern Section 3-A Division, made seven service errors and plenty of other miscues and Canyon responded by taking a 6-2 lead.

But Horneman’s play in the middle, the outside hitting of Chad Strickland and the setting of Chris Quinlan helped the Indians charge back to take a 13-9 lead. An ace by Horneman gave Hart a 14-11 lead before the Cowboys, rated sixth in the 3-A, forced ties at 14-14 and 15-15.

An overset kill by Quinlan and a strong spike by Strickland finally gave Hart the game.

In the second game, Canyon used the hitting of senior Joe Ferguson (13 kills, five blocks overall) to keep pace with Hart at 12-12. Two kills by Ken Gawley and one by Bryan Carlchner swung the game to Hart.

The Indians used the momentum from those two close games to build leads of 8-0 and 11-1 in the third game.

But Canyon didn’t give up. With Ferguson and sophomore Adrian Lorenzana leading the way, the Cowboys rallied to within 14-11 and held off four match points before Ferguson stepped under the net on a hit to give the Indians the final point.