Roughriders Dominating Girls Volleyball : Roosevelt has players with seasoning and power. Now Coach Ken Maki wants to develop his team’s killer instinct.

They’re called the Roughriders, and as far as opponents are concerned, the players on the Roosevelt girls’ volleyball team have lived up to their name.

So far this season, Roosevelt has ridden roughshod to a record of 16-1 overall, 8-1 league, and now the team is poised to ride into the playoffs Thursday and perhaps on to its first City Section 3-A Division title in six years.

“We have a lot of good athletes on this team,” said Coach Ken Maki. “When they play the game hard, like they want (to win), they are great.”

This year, familiarity has bred dominance for Roosevelt. Maki’s squad consists mostly of seniors, the exceptions being juniors Liz Ballesteros and Leona Jacobs.

“We’ve been together for three years,” middle hitter Jackie Villegas said. “During the summer we play in the outside leagues sponsored by the YMCA and we also play with the guys during their season. We really know each other.”

Gabby Gallegos is both a physical and vocal presence on the team, providing perfect sets for hitters such as Villegas and Jacobs and shouting out encouragement to her teammates.

“I’m a hitter,” Jacobs said. “I like to place the ball when I hit it, so that it counts.”

A knack for hitting must run in the Jacobs family. Leona’s older sister and teammate, Lisa Jacobs, also has it, although their approaches to spiking differ. Leona seeks the open spaces between players with precise placement of the ball. Lisa swings freely, letting the ball land where it will.

At 5-8 and 140 pounds, Lisa’s athleticism extends beyond the volleyball court. She laces up her sneakers to play center/forward for the girls’ basketball team after volleyball season, and also excels in track. In her junior year, she eclipsed Roosevelt’s long jump record with a leap of 16-feet, 7-inches and broke the school’s triple jump record with a mark of 33-feet, 8-inches.

Lisa’s efforts this season have earned her Eastern League most valuable player honors.

“Lisa would be a great (college) Division II volleyball player,” Maki said. “She could be a very good Division I player, but like the rest of the team, she has to develop that killer instinct.”

In fact, the entire team needs to develop that instinct or else their ride into the postseason sunset could be brief. During games in which they’ve built up big leads, the Roughriders have often let opponents back in the match. Instead of finishing off the kill, Roosevelt has often eased up.

“We have a tendency to play to the (opposing) team’s level,” Lisa Jacobs said. “Once we get a big lead, we slack off. Our communication breaks down and before we know it, the other team is back in the game.”

“Sometimes we get too overconfident,” Villegas said. “That’s what happened against South Gate.”

On Oct. 22, the South Gate Rams beat Roosevelt in five games--the first time that the Roughriders played more than four games in a set this year--and ruined their bid for a perfect season.

Even in victory, Roosevelt has proven vulnerable. In another match against South Gate on Oct. 6, Roosevelt was up two games and leading 12-4 in the third game, but the Rams outscored them 11-2 and took the game. Roosevelt won the match, three games to one.

“They have a very good team,” South Gate coach Celina Garcia said after losing to Roosevelt. “They set really well, and have a great player in (Lisa Jacobs).”

In an Oct. 27 home win over Bell, Roosevelt took the first game (15-8), played seesaw with the lead in the second game and lost to the Eagles (13-15), before winning games three (15-13) and four (15-4).

“I tell my players that volleyball is a game of momentum,” Maki said. “On any given night, any team can beat you if they ride their momentum.”

Maki has had a fair amount of teams make the most of this philosophy in his 12 years as coach of the girls’ team. His teams won the City Section 3-A Division crown in 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985 and 1986, when Roosevelt spawned perhaps the greatest volleyball player the school has ever known--Cheryl Stephens.

Stephens showcased her volleyball prowess at Cal State Long Beach, the 1990 NCAA national champion. “Cheryl was a very dominant player,” Maki said. “She is the type of player that comes along once every 10 years.” Come playoff time, Roosevelt will cross the paths of 4-A Division powers Chatsworth and Palisades. Those schools have hitters with an average height of Roosevelt’s tallest player (Lisa Jacobs, 5-8), and view volleyball less as a sport than as a way of life.

Roosevelt has played in three single-game elimination tournaments so far this year. In the Birmingham tournament Sept. 12, the Roughriders lost to Chatsworth in the finals 15-8. They also lost to El Camino Real, 15-7, in the finals of the Venice tournament Sept. 26, but they defeated Van Nuys, 16-14, in the Sylmar tournament on Oct. 17.

Roosevelt’s biggest hindrance could prove to be the lack of solid Southeastern Conference teams to prime them for the playoffs. The Roughriders roped the Huntington Park Spartans 15-0, 15-1, 15-2 in just 30 minutes in a game earlier this season.

“The problem is the lack of steady competition in our conference,” Maki said.

But Roosevelt knows, in looking at the competition that awaits them, the ride ahead will be a rough one.