Unnerved Pierce Stopped in Final : College volleyball: Orange Coast foils Brahmas’ bid to win second state title in three years.

Sitting on the bench before the match, his voice low so as perhaps not to alarm his volleyball players warming up nearby, Pierce College Coach Ken Stanley made an observation that proved prophetic.

“I think we are nervous,” Stanley said. “I know the (Pierce) coaches are. I think (Orange Coast) might step it up a bit and we might slip a little.”

Stanley read his charges correctly.

The Brahmas looked out of sync and unable to make things happen as Orange Coast took a 16-14, 17-15, 15-13 match from Pierce to claim the state championship Saturday night at Santa Barbara City College.

What started as an ugly, rainy day for the Brahmas (20-1) ended even darker in an upset that prevented Pierce from winning its second title in three years. It also erased a near-perfect season in which they already had defeated the Pirates in four games in a match at Pierce in March.

But this time, Orange Coast (17-3) went after Pierce with everything working smoothly and managed to hold off several Pierce rallies. It is the second state championship for the Pirates, who won it all in 1991.

“I had my whole starting lineup returning from last season and I kept saying that ’94 would be our season,” said Chuck Cutenese, the second-year coach at Orange Coast. “We took advantage of our experience this year.”

The Pirates also exploited the Pierce blocking schemes with powerful spikes that found their mark repeatedly.

Orange Coast had 80 kills against 56 for Pierce, including 21 from opposite hitter Dave Kellar.

“What we wanted to do was to attack from behind the 10-foot line to free our hitters up,” Cutenese said. “That really paid off for us.”

It was Pierce who went on a blitz to take a 7-3 lead in the first game, but Orange Coast rallied to take the game, scoring the final three points on kills by outside hitter Mike Melcher. Outside hitter Jason Crone, who finished with 15 kills, had eight in the game.

“We were up and they came back, and psychologically, that gave them a big lift for the rest of the match,” Stanley said. “They played absolutely great.”

The story in the second game were the missed opportunities by Pierce, which committed six hitting errors and again had to watch an early lead evaporate.

Gabe Higa, Pierce’s powerful opposite hitter, was held to seven kills by the Pirate defense and outside hitter Jason Ring, the other key man in the Brahma attack, had only two. They kept hammering at the Orange Coast blockers, often slamming the ball past them, only to see the back-row players save the day with outstanding digs.

“We were setting Higa but they were making the saves,” Stanley said.

Cutenese said the effort by the Pirate defense was the culmination of a season in which he stressed that part of the game over and over.

“We spent a lot of time this year working on defense,” Cutenese said. “It really paid off tonight.”

The Brahmas made a desperation run at Orange Coast in the third game, but the Pirates wore them down slowly.

After leading, 3-2, the Brahmas were never in control and Orange Coast scored two consecutive points to win, the clincher on a service ace by Dave Mays.

Higa finished with a match-high 22 kills and teammate Felipe Placencia had 10.