DIVISION I VOLLEYBALL PLAYOFFS : Poway Advances With Sweep of Santa Barbara

When Poway High School took the floor to warm up Tuesday night, girls’ volleyball Coach Lisa Reis was concerned. Her team, ranked No. 4 in the state and No. 18 in the nation, was ominously quiet.

“That means one of two things,” Reis said. “They’re scared, or they’re going to kick somebody’s butt.”

Poway (25-1) opted for the latter, scoring a 15-11, 15-12, 15-6 sweep of Santa Barbara, a semifinalist from the Southern Section, in the first round of the CIF Division I Southern California Regional. The match took only 84 minutes. It was the first time Santa Barbara (22-6), ranked 10th in the state, had lost in three straight games.

The Titans are the No. 2 seed in the tournament and will host a quarterfinal match against Laguna Beach Saturday at 7 p.m.

Laguna Beach defeated Bakersfield North, 3-0, on Tuesday. The Artists were ranked second in the state and sixth in the nation when Poway beat them in four games three weeks ago.

Kara Milling, who had a match-high 19 kills, said Poway’s pre-game silence was golden.

“We didn’t want to use up our energy,” she said. “We were thinking about how much this game meant to us.”

Maybe it was the hitting of Milling, Korie Rogers (nine kills) and Keri Byrne (eight kills). Or the setting of Krista Purvis. Or the defensive wizardry of Lindsey Kamen and Robyn Vasterling.

Victory didn’t come without a struggle, and an outburst, especially in the second game.

Poway won Game 1, 15-11, but after taking a 7-1 lead, the Dons showed their resiliency by going on a 18-8 scoring run and taking an 8-0 lead in Game 2.

Taking advantage of Santa Barbara’s errors, the Titans showed their fortitude and tied the game at 10. After trading 15 serves, Poway held an 11-10 edge. But with Rogers on the service line, Milling got a kill and two Dons errors made it 14-10. Rogers scored the final point on a monstrous kill off Purvis’ set, making it 15-12.

The wind came out of Santa Barbara’s sails. The Dons tied Poway at 2-2 in Game 3, then surrendered seven unanswered points.

Dena Donnellon, who tied Erin Wayne with a team-high 10 kills, said the Dons never got warmed up properly. They were expecting a 7:30 p.m. start instead of 7 p.m.

“We never got it together, there was no chemistry,” Donnellon said. “We were nervous. It was a long ride down.”

And it will be a long ride back. It was Santa Barbara’s first appearance in the state playoffs.

“We never really got into the game,” Don Coach Bob Moore said. “We never once found a comfort zone where we could play our game.”